Weekly Bulletin

Researcher speaks on challenges to secular feminist activism in Pakistan

Afiya S. Zia, a feminist researcher and activist based in Karachi, Pakistan, speaks on "Challenges to Secular Feminist Activism: The 'War on Terror' and Islamic Politics in Pakistan" on Tuesday, Feb. 26, 5-7 p.m. in the Cape Cod Lounge of the Student Union.

Zia will trace the backlash against the liberal and secular women's movement as betrayers of the Muslim (male) cause. She will also discuss the misguided prescription of academic and developmental projects that advocate the instrumentalization of Islam as an appropriate and "authentic" approach in Muslim contexts.

Story lectures on Jonathan Edwards at Renaissance Center

Ronald Story will deliver a lecture concerning Jonathan Edwards as part of the Renaissance Wednesday Lecture Series on March 6 at 4 p.m. at the Renaissance Center.

The lecture is free and open to the public.

View a conversation with Ronald Story, author of  "Jonathan Edwards and the Gospel of Love"
 
The Renaissance Center is located at 650 East Pleasant St. and can be reached at 577-3600.

Campus employees eligible for discount at Juniper Summer Writing Institute

The MFA Program for Poets and Writers, one of the nation's oldest and finest creative writing programs, will host its 10th annual Juniper Summer Writing Institute and eighth annual Institute for Young Writers from June 23-29. UMass employees and campus community members are invited to apply and receive a special discount.

The Juniper Summer Writing Institute offers a week of workshops in poetry, fiction, and memoir, craft sessions, readings, and manuscript consultations with world-renowned faculty and writers in residence including Mark Doty, Joy Williams, Dara Wier, Anthony Doerr, D.A.

Brady discuses contemplative pedagogy in STEM talk

Richard Brady, founder and director of Minding Your Life; Mindfulness in Teaching and Learning, will speak on “Learning to Stop, Stopping to Learn: Discovering the Contemplative Dimension" at a Tuesday STEM Talk on Tuesday, March 5 at 4 p.m. in 138 Hasbrouck.

Contemplative pedagogy is a young and growing approach in American education. It invites new possibilities for the emergence of creativity and promotes depth of understanding and a more personal relationship with course content. The path to contemplative learning is different for each educator who travels it.

New course proposal

The following new course proposal has been submitted to the Faculty Senate Office for review and approval and is listed here for faculty review and comment. Comments on any new course proposal should be submitted to Ernest May, secretary of the Faculty Senate, at senate@senate.umass.edu.

CE-ENGIN 684, “Environmental Reaction Kinetics,” 3 credits; Instructor: David Reckhow; Environmental Engineers are increasingly called upon to analyze the speed of pollutant conversion in chemical and biological systems.

Doctoral oral exams for March 4-8

The graduate dean invites all graduate faculty to attend the final oral examinations for the doctoral candidates scheduled as follows:

Yen-Han Lin, Ph.D., Chemical Engineering. Monday, March 4, 10:30 a.m., Gunness Student Center, Marcus Hall. Dissertation: “Stability of Liquid Films Flowing over Heterogeneous Surfaces and Gas-Solid Flow of Decomposing Particles with Applications to Biomass Pyrolysis.” Jeffery Davis, chr.

Zuojing Chen, Ph.D., Electrical and Computer Engineering. Monday, March 4, 2 p.m., 201 Marcus Hall, Conference Room.

New course proposals

The following new course proposals have been submitted to the Faculty Senate Office for review and approval and are listed here for faculty review and comment. Comments on any new course proposal should be submitted to Ernest May, secretary of the Faculty Senate, at senate@senate.umass.edu.

E&C-ENGIN 688Y, “Graduate Project,” 3 credits; Instructor: C. V. Hollot (or R. W. Jackson, R. Tessier); This is the first semester of a two-semester project where a student works with a faculty advisor on a project which is suitable for six graduate credits.

New Africa House Ensemble performs Feb. 28

The New Africa House Ensemble, a group of faculty, graduate students and undergraduates, will perform music by Jimmy Smith, Oliver Nelson, Horace Silver, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, Abdullah Ibrahim and The Meters on Thursday, Feb. 28 at 7 p.m. in the Augusta Savage Gallery, New Africa House.
 
The event is sponsored by the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies.

Allen Holder presents special Mechanical and Industrial Engineering seminar

Allen Holder of the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology will speak on “Robust Analysis of Metabolic Pathways: Engineering, Biology, and Math” on Thursday, Feb. 28 at 4 p.m. in the Gunness Student Center, Marcus Hall.
 
Refreshments precede the lecture at 3:45.
 
The overriding goal of this talk is to show how topics in engineering design can aid problems in the biological sciences, and in reverse, how the engineering fields can gain from the biological application.

First Sunday Concert with Circa 1600 at Renaissance Center

Circa 1600 presents "Dancing for Julia," music associated with the work of musicologist and dance historian Julia Sutton, on Sunday, March 3 at 2 p.m. at the Renaissance Center, 650 East Pleasant St.

Circa 1600 is dedicated to high renaissance and early baroque music, including lute trios, lute songs, dance music, and vocal polyphony. With an unusual instrumentation of three lutes complemented by three singers, the group presents rarely-heard music of the time as well as original arrangements following the performance practices of the era.

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