UPbeat

News for and about University of Portland faculty and staff.

Zahm Lecture

Vandana Shiva in Person at UP for the 2024 Zahm Lecture! (Sept. 10)

Pope Francis’ call for environmental justice and care for the earth in his encyclical Laudato Si makes the connection between our environmental collapse and its impact on the poor and vulnerable: “We are faced not with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, but rather with one complex crisis which is both social and environmental.” (LS, 139) The 2024 Zahm lecture brings Vandana Shiva, PhD, one of the foremost voices in environmental activism, to our campus to expand on that insight and advocate for “Earth Democracy.”

Shiva has been identified by Time Magazine as an environmental “hero” and one of the “seven most powerful women on the globe” by Forbes. An author of over 20 books, Shiva is also a scholar, environmental activist, ecofeminist, and a food sovereignty and anti-globalization advocate based in Delhi. 

September 10, Buckley Center Auditorium, 7:00 p.m. 

More Info at Zahm 2024

This not to miss talk is free, open to all, and ADA compliant. Sponsored by the Garaventa Center.

Vandana Shiva In Person at UP for the 2024 Zahm Lecture! (Sep. 10)

Don’t miss this special evening with Vandana Shiva, PhD, for her talk “Earth Democracy: The Democracy of All Life.” Earth Democracy connects us through the perennial renewal and regeneration of life – from our daily life to the life of the universe. It is the universal story of our times, in our different places and pulsates with the limitless potential of an unfolding universe even while it addresses the real threats to our very survival as a species.

Shiva is the author of over 20 books and was identified by Time Magazine as an environmental “hero” and by Forbes Magazine as one of the “Seven most Powerful Women on the Globe”. Shiva is a scholar, environmental activist, ecofeminist, and food sovereignty and anti-globalization advocate based in Delhi. 

September 10, Buckley Center Auditorium, 7:00 p.m. 

Visit the official Zahm Lecture page for complete event information.

2024 Zahm Lecture

Free, open to all, and ADA compliant. Sponsored by the Garaventa Center.

2023 Zahm Lecture Now Available Online

If you missed the 2023 Zahm lecture with author, religious commentator, and public scholar Gloria Purvis, it is now available to watch on the Garaventa Center website at 2023 Zahm Lecture.

In her lecture, Faith, Race, and Justice, Purvis explores how we can oppose the evil of racism without being consumed by rage and despair and how wonder, imagination and the love of the Divine prepares us to confront the challenges of the world.

2023 Zahm Lecture

Annual Zahm Lecture: “I’m Done Being Polite! Truth Telling in Education” with Dr. Cecilia González-Andrieu (Sept. 14)

Join us onWednesday, September 14, at 5 p.m. in the Brian Doyle Auditorium (Dundon-Berchtold 004) for the 2022 Annual Zahm lecture as Dr. González-Andrieu explores themes of social justice, hope, truth, and not letting beauty get lost in the shuffle.

Cecilia González-Andrieu is professor of theology at Loyola Marymount University, where she also works on multiple initiatives to serve the Latinx community, especially undocumented students’ and workers’ rights. A graduate of LMU and the Graduate Theological Union Berkeley, where she was named Alumna of the Year, she is a contributing writer for America magazine and publishes and speaks widely as a public theologian. Committed to a faith that does justice, she is also a member of the board of directors of the Ignatian Solidarity Network and an advisor to the Discerning Deacons Project. A respected international lecturer on issues of political theology, theological aesthetics, and Latino theology, she is the author of the book Bridge to Wonder: Art as a Gospel of Beauty, co-editor of Teaching Global Theologies: Power and Praxis, and a contributor to many other publications, including Go into the Streets!: The Welcoming Church of Pope Francis. 

For ADA accommodations or further information, please contact the Garaventa Center at 503.943.7702 or garaventa@up.edu.

Save the Date: 2020 Zahm Lecture, Sept. 16

Gintaras Duda, Catholic cosmologist and chair of physics at Creighton University, will present the 2020 Zahm Lecture entitled, “From the Big Bang to The Saint John’s Bible: The Role of Astonishment in a Scientist’s Journey to Integrate Faith and Reason.” The event is free and open to the public. Here’s the link to join the webinar in progress on September 16 at 5 pm: https://uportland.zoom.us/j/92595796107.

In his talk, Duda will ask: “How can we reconcile science with belief in a personal Christian God?” Astonishment and wonder offer one route for this fundamental reconciliation. Duda will stress the fundamental need for theological and philosophical perspectives on some of the biggest questions in cosmology today. In addition to astro-particle physics/cosmology, Duda is also involved heavily in physics education research and is deeply interested in questions of science and religion. He was named the 2013 Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching Outstanding Master’s Universities and Colleges National Professor of the Year.

The annual Zahm Lecture was established in 1999 with a permanently endowed gift to the University’s Defining Moment Campaign by Ray and Milann Siegfried of Oklahoma. The Zahm Lecture, which launches the academic year, addresses important issues surrounding American Catholic education and honors Fr. John Zahm, C.S.C., an eminent Holy Cross priest and scientist of the late 19th and early 20th century.

For ADA accommodations or further information, please contact the Garaventa Center at garaventa@up.edu or 503-943-7702.

“Cosmology, Catholicity, & Consciousness” with Sr. Ilia Delio, OSF

Ilia-Delio 2-3

Presenting this week’s brain food-packed podcast from the Garaventa Center vault: “Cosmology, Catholicity & Consciousness: Why Wholeness Matters” by brilliant polymath Sr. Ilia Delio, OSF. Taking her cue from Laudato Si’, Sr. Delio explores a new understanding of catholicity today by drawing on insights from quantum physics, neuroscience and evolutionary biology and the nascence of a third millennium theology.

For other uplifting and stimulating presentations, we invite you to check out some of our greatest hits from the last 5 years, or browse our complete archive of podcasts. The Garaventa Center will be featuring some of our favorite podcasts here weekly through the end of the term; contact Karen Eifler (eifler@up.edu) with questions or requests.

 

Final Chance to Hear Marilynne Robinson’s Zahm Lecture

UP received permission to record Marilynne Robinson’s 2019 Zahm Lecture, “Wisdom and Knowledge,”and make it available only to the campus community for 30 days following her public address. That period ends this Friday, October 11; at that point this link will no longer be active. Robinson’s lecture will be published (with the Zahm and UP affiliation cited) in her next collection of essays, forthcoming in the next 18 months.

For questions contact Karen Eifler, Garaventa Center, at eifler@up.edu.

Marilynne Robinson to offer Zahm Lecture, Sept. 11

Renowned author and Pulitzer Prize winner Marilynne Robinson will present the 2019 Zahm Lecture, “Wisdom and Knowledge,” on Wednesday, September 11, at 7:15 p.m., in the Chiles Center. Robinson will touch upon the roles of wonder, grace, and imagination to explore intersections and disconnects between knowledge and wisdom in this lecture that is free and open to all. Doors will open at 6:15 p.m. with first-come, first-served seating. Additional parking available in the Franz river campus lot, with frequent shuttles up to the Chiles Center.

Robinson was the recipient of a 2012 National Humanities Medal, awarded by former President Barack Obama, for “her grace and intelligence in writing.” In 2016 she was awarded the Library of Congress Lifetime Achievement Award in American Fiction, as well as the Dayton Peace Prize’s Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award. In 2013, she was awarded South Korea’s Pak Kyong-ni Prize for her contribution to international literature. She is the author of Gilead, winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award; Home, winner of the Orange Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; and Lila, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her first novel, Housekeeping, won the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award. Robinson’s nonfiction books include The Givenness of Things, When I Was a Child I Read Books, and Mother Country, which was nominated for a National Book Award. Robinson, professor emeritus at the University of Iowa, taught at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop for 25 years.

The Zahm Lecture, which annually launches the academic year, addresses important issues confronting American Catholic higher education, and honors Fr. John Zahm, C.S.C., an eminent Holy Cross priest and scientist of the late 19th and early 20th century, who was one of University of Portland’s founders.

For ADA accommodations or further information, please contact the Garaventa Center at 503-943-7702 or garaventa@up.edu.

2018 Zahm Lecture, Sept. 12

Thomas Landy will present the 2018 Zahm Lecture, “A Guide to College in 8 Contradictions,” on Wednesday, September 12, at 7:15 p.m. in Buckley Center Auditorium. The talk is sponsored by the Garaventa Center, and is free and open to the public. In his talk Landy asks, at a time when people have extraordinary access to information at their fingertips, and vacillate between polarized, ideological certainties and relativistic uncertainty whether there is any such thing as truth worth seeking, and critics left and right question the value of a university education, what’s a student to do? Landy, who is congenitally wary of canned advice, shares why, from his experience, this a better time to be a learner than you might think. So how do you take advantage of the opportunity?

Landy is director of the McFarland Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture at the College of the Holy Cross. A sociologist by training, he researches Catholic life and practice in all corners of globe, exploring remarkably diverse ways that Catholics practice their faith and see the world. For 25 years he has served as director of Collegium, a faculty development program that helps participants from Catholic colleges and universities to reimagine their vocations and to think about how their work serves their students, their schools, and the world.

The Zahm Lecture, which serves as the keynote for the academic year, addresses the important issues surrounding American Catholic education and honors Fr. John Zahm, C.S.C., an eminent Holy Cross priest and scientist of the late 19th and early 20th century.

For ADA accommodations or further information, please contact the Garaventa Center at x7702 or garaventa@up.edu, or visit up.edu/garaventa/events.

2017 Zahm Lecture in American Catholic Education, Sept. 6

The 2017 Zahm Lecture in American Catholic Education will take place on Wednesday, September 6, at 7:15 p.m., in Buckley Center Auditorium. Christine Firer Hinze, PhD, Professor of Christian Ethics at Fordham University, will present “Against the Grain: Could Zeal for Solidarity be UP’s Gift for our Fractious Time?” The Zahm Lecture is free and open to all.

Drawing from the Holy Cross legacy in dialogue with modern Catholic social thought, Firer Hinze proposes that zeal for solidarity may offer a frame for education in faith sorely needed in today’s world. Firer Hinze is Director of the Curran Center for American Catholic Studies at Fordham University. Her teaching and research focus on foundational and applied ethical issues, with special emphasis on the dynamics of social transformation, Catholic social thought, and economic and work justice for women, families, and vulnerable groups. Her recent publications include Glass Ceilings and Dirt Floors: Women, Work, & the Global Economy (2015), and essays in Theological Studies, Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, Proceedings of the Catholic Theological Association of America, and The Journal of Catholic Social Thought.

The Zahm Lecture in American Catholic Education was established in 1999 to honor Rev. John Zahm, C.S.C., an eminent Holy Cross priest and scientist of the late 19th and early 20th century. Zahm, superior of the Holy Cross in America when the University was founded in 1901, contributed counsel, money, and Holy Cross men to the nascent University. The Zahm lecture honors both his memory and the legacy of Holy Cross priests and brothers on The Bluff by addressing important issues surrounding American Catholic education.

For more information or ADA accommodations, contact Sarah Nuxoll, Garaventa Center, at 7702 or garaventa@up.edu, or visit the Zahm Lecture website here.