The Ambrosian | Winter 2010
Exploring the fascinating role and consequences of movement-of people, products, ideas, even data and capital-are at the heart of the St. Ambrose College of Arts and Sciences' yearlong Migration Project.
Much as last year's highly successful Darwin Project looked at evolution in all its forms and meanings, the Migration Project takes us on a multidisciplinary peregrination of how movement affects everything in our lives. Throughout the year, lectures, art exhibits, concerts, and theatre and dance performances are delving into movement across the spectrum of the natural and physical sciences, sociology and psychology, theology and philosophy, history and the arts, and more.
"Last year's Darwin Project was such a tremendous success-defined by the high caliber of speakers and depth of involvement by the university and Quad Cities communities-that many academic departments wanted to sign on for a second installment," says Richard Legg, biology professor and coordinator of the project series.
Upcoming events include a Feb. 24 lecture on the migration of Catholic African Americans by Rev. Cyprian Davis, a national expert on the subject. In March, Stephen Bloom, author of "Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America," returns to campus to speak on "Lessons Learned from Postville." Bloom will focus on how cultures in the United States have segmented themselves to maintain loyalty, identity and values, as evidenced in this Iowa town, and how this segmentation affects society.
Ironically, Dr. Martin Cetron, director of the Division of Global Migration and Quarantine at the Centers for Disease Control, was unable to deliver his Oct. 28 lecture, "Migration and Disease," because he contracted the H1N1 flu, the very pandemic virus he is involved in investigating and leading the nation's response.
Cetron's lecture, expected to be rescheduled in the spring, is typical of the project series in that its timeliness lends itself to "water cooler" discussions, Legg says. Because the project series works to cross disciplines in pursuit of understanding the human experience, it will continue to be a source of "enlightenment" for the university community and beyond.
"Like the blind examiners in the old story of the description of an elephant, each of us and our disciplines have something to say and contribute to our mutual understanding of the world."
-R. Youngblood
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