On October 20th, Dickinson hosted, as part of the Bicentennial Forum , a lecture entitled "The Presidential Campaign." The lecture and debate discussed negative campaigning and the candidates' rights to privacy. The talk was held in the Rubendall Recital Hall in Weiss. L.
Dickinson hosted U.S. Foreign Policy: The Times They Are A'Changin as the Public Affairs Symposium from February 11-14. The keynote address was "U.S. Foreign Policy in A Changin World" given by Geoffrey Barraclough a professor at Brandeis University. Other speakers included Congressman Thomas Harkin, Congressman William Goodling, and Anthony Charles Albrecht who was a Foreign Service Officer. The closing address was given by Tom Wicker from New York Times.
Sibylle Niemoller, the widow to Martin Niemoller who resisted Adolf Hitler directly in World War II and eventually became his "personal prisoner" in a concentration camp by 1945, came to talk to Dickinson students on April 25th, 1988. She spoke of her experiences and her parents experiences in the resistance movement of Hitler: her parents were members of the "von Stauffenberg group" which unsuccessfully tried to assassinate Hitler in the summer of 1944 as well as belonged to a group that helped hide 40 to 60 Jews in their homes in Berlin during the war. Mrs.
Dickinson Council on Law and the Undergraduate sponsored a law seminar about choosing a law school in Holland Union Building siderooms. William L. Wilkes, dean of Dickinson School of Law, was the opening speaker. In addition, recent graduates were available for informal discussions about their law school experience as part of the seminar.
The Dickinson College Democrats and the Political Science Department sponsored a visit from Lisa Dukakis, daughter-in-law of Michael Dukakis then Governor of Massachusetts and hopeful Presidential candidate. Lisa Dukakis spoke to students on Thursday, April 21st, asking students to help with campaigning for her father-in-law. Lisa Dukakis acted as his southern finance coordinator for the campaign. The event allowed for the students of Dickinson to hear more about the campaign and to come together and discuss a political movement and campaign.
Josh Friedman, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, spoke on the topic of journalism in the Third World at the Bernard Center on Monday, April 21, 1986. Friedman emphasized that countries such as Ethiopia, Lebanon, and Cuba, where most news is censored and manipulated, lack the freedom of speech afforded to American journalists.
Tobias Wolff, an American author and short-story writer, taught Professor Robert Olmstead's advanced writing class on Wednesday, February 12, 1986, and gave readings of his work to a full crowd at the Bernard Center.
His readings included "Hunters in the Snow" and "In the Garden of the North American Martyrs" from his first collection of short stories. Wolff went on to cover various topics in writing technique, including point of view, characterization and form, and also conducted a question and answer period.
Dickinson students and faculty members protested before the United States Attorney General Edwin Meese III's "major policy address" in ATS on Tuesday, September 17, 1985. Meese's speech reinforced the Reagan Administration's commitment to the abolition of race and gender quotas in American society, drawing criticism from a number of college faculty members in a "teach-in" which followed the speech.
Earth Week, sponsored by the Environmental Science and American Studies departments, began on April 14th. DARE (Dickinsonians Advocating Resourcefulness with our Environment) was also involved in this program: it was their first big educational program. Some of the events that were hosted during Earth Week were movies and speakers discussing environmental topics, the planting of a tree by the Young Entrepreneurs Society (YES), and a concert by the campus band Crazy Epsters.
The Latin American Studies' annual colloquium hosted their keynote speaker, Nicaraguan Ambassador Carlos Tunnermann, on March 23, 1988. The focus of the colloquium was Nicaragua: A Country in Turmoil. The colloquium, which lasted two days, focused on the impact of the Sandanista Revolution within Nicaragua and the United States' involvement within Central America.
On Friday, April 20, 1984, Senator William Proxmire (D-Wisc.) spoke on issues of economics and foreign policy in the keynote address of Dickinson College's Mock Convention, held in the Kline center. In his address, Proxmire criticized President Reagan's deficit, which had risen from $56 billion to $195 billion between 1981 and 1983. To cut back on spending, Proxmire proposed eliminating military spending on missiles, bombers, aircraft and tanks.
Professor Bruno Roselli was a native of Florence, Italy and a professor at Vassar College. He gave a lecture that discussed "Italy's Industrial Revolution," in which he traced the genesis, development, and present condition of of the recent so-called bloodless war between Italian capital and labor.
As part of the Multicultural Fair and Black Arts Festival, the Dickinson Society of Hispanic Students sponsored a lecture given by Dr. Francisco Villagran, the former Ambassador of Guatemala. The lecture was held on March 2nd in Memorial Hall. The president and vice-president of the Society of Hispanic Students felt that there was a lack of knowledge on campus about international issues regarding Central America which led them to choose Dr. Villagran to speak as part of the Festival.
Dr. Ralph Abernathy visited Dickinson and gave a lecture as part of the Multicultural Fair and Black Arts Festival. His lecture was entitled, "Martin Luther King and His Significance in Black History." This conference, sponsored by the Congress of Afro-American Students, took place on March 3rd at 4 p.m. at ATS. As a leader of bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955 to 1956, Abernathy was a leader within the civil rights movement and co-founded the Montgomery Improvement Association with Martin Luther King Jr., a dear friend of his.
Lorrie Moore, an author and former graduate from Cornell, was hosted by the English department on March 9th. Moore, who had been praised for her use of realism and humor, read selections from Self-Help, a collection of short stories, and her new novel Anagrams. The readings took place in Memorial Hall at 8 p.m.
Dickinson College hosted a Peer Writing Tutor Conference on February 20th where 70 students from other liberal arts colleges discussed the ethics of peer tutoring and how to improve their tutoring skills. Some of the colleges that were part of the conference were Bucknell University, Gettysburg College, and Franklin & Marshall College.
The Public Affairs Symposium began on February 14th, 1988 entitled: "American Education: Writing the Next Chapter." The focus of the Symposium, which had a total of 15 sessions and discussions, was on the educational system and trends of that time period.
Safer Sex Week, a program that was created by The Sexuality Resource Group (SRG), began on February 7th and continued until Thursday, February 18th. The week was dedicated to educating Dickinson students how to have safe sex, how to communicate properly, how to use contraceptives, and how to recognize sexual assault and harassment through a series of different events.
Jonathan Spence, Professor of History at Yale University, was chosen to give a lecture, entitled, "Cultural Crossings: China and France in the 18th Century," on October 16th, 1987 as part of the Morgan Lectureship series, a program created by the Board of Trustees in 1929 in honor of James Henry Morgan who was a member of the class of 1878 and a past President of Dickinson College. Professor Spence, an expert on China's history, gave the lecture in the Rubendall Recital Hall of the Weiss Center for Art on October 16th at 3 p.m.
Dickinson hosted Human Destiny: Can It Be Controlled? as the Public Affairs Sympsium from February 8-11. The keynote speaker was "Limits to Growth" by Dennis Meadowsa professor of Business and Engineering at Dartmouth College.
James Spady gave a lecture on "The Black Man and World Civilizations" in Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium at 8pm on December 2, 1975.
Dr. Ira Landrith was the head of the Intercollegiate Prohibition Association, and was a former candidate for Vice President of the United States on the Prohibition ticket. He delivered a sermon designed for college students at the college church.
Richard A. Davis, former Deputy Director of the Office of Strategic Nuclear Policy, U.S. Department of State, discussed Nuclear Arms Control in the Public Affairs Symposium on February 13, 1984. In his discussion, Davis outlined the then current United States policy regarding the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) with the Soviet Union.
Professor Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, from the University of Pennsylvania, presented her paper on "H.R. Storer and the Crazy Kangaroo" as part of the Sex Roles in Intellectual Life symposium.
Dickinson presented the Civil Religion in America -- Manifest Destiny and Historical Judgment as part of Dickinson's 200th anniversary celebration from April 12 to 14, 1973. Some of the speakers included Robert N. Bellah, who was the keynote speaker, Timothy L. Smith, and James H. Smilie.