Welcome to the Center

Spring 2010
The Faculty Fellows Colloquy

Faculty FellowsThe Faculty Fellows Colloquy of the Center for Spiritual Life opened spring 2010 with an exciting conversation around the Nicholas Kristof essay "How Can We Help?", one of series published in the New York Times Book Review. Kristof, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and co-author of Half the Sky, Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, will speak for Eckerd's Africa Initiative on April 6 at The Palladium.

Colloquy Coordinator Davina Lopez announced the agenda of the Colloquy as a new kind of conversation, "conversation about things that matter." Throughout the spring, five conversations, each led by a Faculty Fellow, will invite Eckerd community members to explore, question, and reflect on themes that intersect society and the individual, the spirit and the mind. Dates and leaders of the remaining spring conversations are listed below.

The opening conversation included students, faculty, staff and guest Dr. Kate Blanchard, Professor of Christian Ethics at Alma College, in attendance, discussion covered a variety of issues related to poverty and the response of the Western world to global poverty. Among the questions tackled by the group were:

  • Is being poor undesirable?
  • What does poverty look like?
  • Where does the call for aid come from?
  • Can we accurately identify ourselves as "barely in a position to help?"
  • Can people be poor by choice?
  • How do we know where the world should be?
  • Can we get it where it needs to be?

Responding to the interest and urging of the students present, the Fellows and the Center are seriously considering programming around the issue of poverty during fall 2010. The remaining spring colloquies are:

Tuesday, March 18

Continuing Conversation with Andy Tatem and Greg Gerdeman
"Who Moved My Human? Using Satellite and Spatial Technologies to Map
Humans, Malaria and Mosquitos"
Following the 7:30PM lecture Faculty Lounge

Wednesday, March 24

Continuing Conversation with Kip Curtis
"Gardening as Ritual for the Creation of Values"
Following the 7:30PM lecture Faculty Lounge

Tuesday, April 13

Conversation with Joan Epstein
subject TBD
5:00PM over dinner in the Wave Café
Meals provided for those not on a meal plan

Tuesday, April 27

Conversation with Slavica Kodish
"The Spiritual Message of The Phantom of the Opera"
 5:00PM over dinner in the Wave Cafe
Meals provided for those not on a meal plan

All members of the Eckerd community are welcome to any of these colloquies. Information regarding texts to peruse for each colloquy will be distributed by email the week prior.

FMI contact Mona, x7757, or Davina, x7552.