Alumni Colloquium Schedule

Schedule

Friday, May 3

8:30 a.m. - 1 p.m.

Checking in
You can pick up your packet with a name tag, schedule, speaker biographies, list of open classes and meal tickets at the Pontypool building. There is a small driveway in front available while you pick up your packet.
Pontypool, 22 Snell Street

9 a.m. – 2 p.m.

Visit Open Classes
A list of open classes will be available online in April and will also be provided in registration packets.
Various locations

Noon – 2 p.m.

Lunch (as you are free)
Meal tickets provided in registration packets.
Valentine Dining Hall

1:30 p.m. - 4 p.m.

Checking in
Check in and pick up your packets on site at the program.
Lobby, Converse Hall

2 P.M. – 3 p.m.

Opening Lecture: Democracy, the Rule of Law and the Design Flaws in Our Constitution
with Lawrence Douglas, James J. Grosfeld Professor of Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought
Cole Assembly Room, Converse Hall

3:15 P.M. – 4:15 p.m.

Current Student Research 
Katherine (Katie) Pedersen '19 will speak on her thesis, "Divided News; Divided Nation" and Matthew Walsh '19 will speak on "Senegalese Civil Society: Islam, Hip-Hop and Democratic Reform."
Cole Assembly Room, Converse Hall

4:15 P.M. – 4:45 p.m.

Break
Refreshments available

4:45 P.M. – 5:35 p.m. 

Democratic Backsliding
with Javier Corrales, Dwight W. Morrow 1895 Professor of Political Science
Cole Assembly Room, Converse Hall

5:45 p.m.

Mead Art Reception
Have a cocktail and check out the current exhibits, including Fleeting Nature: Selections from the Collection - Permanent collection works exploring how artists use landscape to comment on a range of ideas, from religion and individualism, to nation-building and the environment.
Mead Art Museum

7 p.m.

Dinner 
After dinner talk with Ceridwen Cherry '06, Staff Attorney in the Voting Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union. The census is vital to U.S. democracy. Accurate census data is crucial for both apportioning Congressional and legislative seats, and providing federal funds for infrastructure and social services. It is also widely used by the business community. Ceridwen Cherry '06 will discuss her work challenging the addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 decennial census in the recent Supreme Court case New York Immigration Coalition v. Commerce.
Lewis-Sebring Dining Commons

Saturday, May 4

7:30 A.M. – 9 a.m.

Breakfast (as you are free)
Meal tickets are provided in registration packets.
Valentine Dining Hall

9 A.M. – 10 a.m.

Democracy Demands Data: Modern Lessons From the Cradle of Democracy and Elsewhere
with Andreas Georgiou '83, Visiting Lecturer and Visiting Scholar at Amherst College
Pruyne Lecture Hall, Fayerweather Hall

10:15 – 11:15 a.m.

Nation-Building and Democracy in Africa: Scholarship and Pedagogy
Olufemi O. Vaughan, Alfred Sargent Lee '41 and Mary Farley Ames Lee Professor of Black Studies, will contextualize prevailing political, economic, and social conditions (weak states, weak civil society, deepening economic crisis, and consolidation of neoliberal economic reforms) in which African states embarked on a second wave of liberal  democratic transition following the demise of the Cold War in the early 1990s (the first wave of democratic transitions in Africa occurred during the decolonization process in the 1950s and 1960s). This context will set the stage for discussions on the challenges and opportunities for democratic governance in African countries as diverse as Nigeria, Ghana, Rwanda, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Senegal and Uganda.
Pruyne Lecture Hall, Fayerweather Hall

11:30 A.M.

Democracy and Globalization
with Leah C. Schmalzbauer, William R. Kenan Professor of American Studies and Sociology
Pruyne Lecture Hall, Fayerweather Hall

12:45 P.M. – 1:45 P.M.

Lunch
No ticket required.
Lewis-Sebring Dining Commons

2 p.m.

Religion and Democracy in 20th-century America
with Francis G. (Frank) Couvares, E. Dwight Salmon Professor of History and American Studies. The main point of this talk is that separation of church and state (a foundation of our constitutional republic) is not the same as separation of religion and politics (an ineradicable part of our democratic politics). A second point is this: religion is a motivator (not a platform) and it has been recruited to motivate all kinds of political movements, left, right and center.
Pruyne Lecture Hall, Fayerweather Hall

3 P.M.

Why Democracy Today Needs More Rhetoric, Not Less: Lessons from Greco-Roman Antiquity
with Christopher S. van den Berg, Associate Professor of Classics
Pruyne Lecture Hall, Fayerweather Hall