Second TEDxSkidmoreCollege to focus on future

“Visions of the Future” is the focus of the second TEDxSkidmoreCollege set for this Wednesday, Dec. 3, at 7 p.m. in the Helen Filene Ladd Concert Hall at the Arthur Zankel Music Center.

Three faculty speakers – Rebecca Howard, Gordon Thompson and Sheldon Solomon -- will make presentations that explore the future from a range of perspectives, including our search for meaning, our relationship with alcohol, and new modes of education. Two students who successfully auditioned for their places on the program also will speak: Gavin Berger ’15 and Marcella Jewell ’15.

Serving as co-masters of ceremonies will be event organizers Sarah Green ’16 and Jake Mitchell ’14. Green and Mitchell organized the College’s first TEDxSkidmore College event last year. Their advisor is Catherine Hill, F. William Harder Professor of Business Administration. 

Tickets at $1 may be reserved in advance by visiting the Zankel Box Office or via this link. They also may be purchased at the door. The event also will be livestreamed. Click here to tune in.

Brief synopses of their talks are offered in below in the order they’ll be presented:

Rebecca Howard, assistant professor of chemistry, will speak on “Too Much of a Good Thing: Evolving Our Relationship with Alcohol.”

Historically dubbed “water of life,” alcohol may have played a critical role in the development of civilization as we know it, says Howard. “Yet as our medical and nutritional dependence on this unique molecule fades, access to potent alcohol sources presents increasing challenges to individual health, family and social structure, and sustainable energy. Our long-term good may depend on reinventing our relationship with this once life-giving commodity.” Howard studied chemistry and chemical biology at Pomona College and the University of California, San Francisco. Prior to joining Skidmore, she worked at the interdisciplinary Waggoner Center for Alcohol and Addiction Research at The University of Texas at Austin.  

Gordon Thompson, professor and chair of the Department of Music, will speak on “The Four-year College in a Lifelong Education.

”Although many a student thinks of college as the end of the educational road, a different paradigm contextualizes this four-year period of study, perseverance, and personal growth as a gateway to a life in which continuous learning and transformation play a prominent role," says Thompson. “Many of the courses we offer on campus can be reimagined as video experiences similar to these TEDx talks, except that, rather than discrete disconnected lectures, we can shatter the notion of a linear course of studies to the benefit of both the teacher and the taught.  Moreover, given that students and their families have already heavily invested in their education, we should offer continued intellectual enrichment gratis as part of our institutional responsibility.  That is, once you graduate, you should be able to take our online courses for free.” Thompson is the author of Please Please Me: Sixties British Pop, Inside Out (Oxford) and the author-producer of The Beatles: An Introduction, an experiment in online learning.  In addition to having served on and chaired the college’s Committee on Educational Policies and Planning, he has organized the annual Beatlemore Skidmania concerts for the past fourteen years.

Sheldon Solomon, professor of psychology, will speak on “Afraid of the Dark: Humanity at the Crossroads."

”Humans manage existential terror by embracing cultural world views that afford a sense of meaning and value, and hope of immortality," says Solomon. “Efforts to transcend death underlie our most noble achievements; however, they also foster our most ignominious proclivities, including disdain for and hostility toward people with different beliefs; indifference to, or contempt for, the natural environment; and, the mindless pursuit of money and stuff—which, if unchecked, may render we humans the first life-form to prune their own branch from The Tree of Life.” Solomon will discuss prospects for the future of our species in light of these ideas. His studies of the effects of the uniquely human awareness of death on behavior have been supported by the National Science Foundation and Ernest Becker Foundation, and were featured in the award-winning documentary film Flight from Death: The Quest for Immortality. 

Gavin Berger ’15 will speak on “The Mechanism of Mindful Process.”

When he arrived at Skidmore as a first-year student, Berger was convinced that achievement was the sole test for a successful college career. Then last fall he went he went to Russia to study the Stanislavsky System at the Moscow Art Theater, an intenseive experience that forced him to rebuild his approach to acting from the ground up. Berger will describe the  transformation that occurred as a result of that experience, especially in the way he now defines “success.” A founding member of Skidmore’s newest improvisational theater ensemble, Awkward Kids Talking, Berger is majoring in chemistry with a biochemistry concentration and a theater minor. He plans to apply to medical school next summer to pursue a career in medicine, using his theater training to better relate to patients.

Marcella Jewell ’15 will speak on “Passion, Programming, and Pragmatism.”

Entrepreneurs live at the cross-section of a three-pronged tension: passion, programming, and pragmatism, says Jewell. “They must be extraordinary at each.” In establishing her start-up enterprise, Open Campus, “I found it difficult to simultaneously be passionate, pragmatic, and technically or logically savvy,” she says. “Unless I mastered all three, I found I could not master just one.” A senior studying government and computer science, Jewell will explain how she discovered this vital equation and why she now applies it to every problem she faces. Jewell’s Open Campus placed third in the New York State Business Plan Competition last year and is now scaling up to launch version 2.0 in the spring. 

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TED Talks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized. (Subject to certain rules and regulations.)