Chicago Youth Climate Strike: Fri 9/20/19 in Grant Park

Join members of RU Green, the Math Club, and others in an all-ages Chicago Youth Climate Strike march in Grant Park in downtown Chicago this Friday 9/20/19 in solidarity with climate strike marchers all over the world. Options for meeting:

  • 10:30am WB Lobby, 425 S. Wabash Ave., then walk with RU Green to Grant Park
  • 11:00am, south end of Grant Park (Roosevelt & Columbus)

RU students, want to help make signs? Join RU Green outside the CSI office (WB 3rd floor) on Wed 9/18 @5pm. Bring your own poster-making supplies if you have ’em (supplies limited).

Questions? Email RU Green prez Samantha Schultz (sschultz10@mail.roosevelt.edu).

FOIA Workshop Session @RU Monday 2/18

SUST and SOC majors, check out this excellent workshop at RU scheduled for tomorrow, Mon 2/18, at 11am in AUD 314. (See this pdf).

This workshop is ideal for students in my current SUST 340 Policy, Law, & Ethics course, as well as for all SUST and SOC majors. If you’re on campus tomorrow and free at 11, I highly recommend attending! However, if you’re unable to make it, no worries: there will be handouts available — and Prof. Cusac is a good colleague of mine who would be happy to speak with you individually about how FOIA requests could enhance your environmental/sociological research.

Chicago’s True Nature: Black History Month Event at RU on Tues 2/27

DATE & TIME:
Tuesday, February 27, 2018
4pm –6pm

LOCATION:
Roosevelt University
Sullivan Room
Auditorium Building 2nd Floor (AUD 232)
430 S. Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL 60605

RSVP:
Please register at:
forestpreserves_blackhistorymonth.eventbrite.com

You’re Invited to a Celebration of Black History Month!

The Chicago area is known as a crossroads of diverse cultural groups and ideas. Less commonly known, is the biological diversity of our region. Varied ecosystems are home to native plant and animal species thriving within the Forest Preserves of Cook County.

With nearly 70,000 sprawling acres of wild and wonderful wilderness, the Forest Preserves is a regional asset which improves our quality of life, but not everyone is aware of or has the opportunity to enjoy the benefits that come from spending time outside. The Forest Preserves and its partners recognize the challenge of ensuring that everyone has access to nature and are working to better engage communities of color and grow public stewardship of nature.

Please join us to hear about both the historical and contemporary connections between environmentalism and the African American experience and how we can work together to protect nature and ensure that it is welcoming and accessible to all.

A panel discussion will follow thought-provoking presentations by Brian McCammack, professor at Lake Forest College and author of the new book Landscapes of Hope: Nature and the Great Migration in Chicago, Veronica Kyle, Chicago Outreach Director with Faith in Place, and Arnold Randall, General Superintendent of the Forest Preserves of Cook County. Kimberly N. Ruffin, Ph.D., Associate Professor of English at Roosevelt University, will act as moderator.

Light refreshments will be served. Hardback copies of Professor McCammack’s book Landscapes of Hope: Nature and the Great Migration in Chicago will be available for sale for $40 each (cash or check).

The event is free but space is limited, and registration is required. For directions and transportation information please visit www.roosevelt.edu/campuses/maps-directions

This event is co-sponsored by Roosevelt University and the Forest Preserves of Cook County.

Speaker Bios and Abstracts:

Veronica Kyle directs all of Faith in Place’s Chicago outreach programs, with a particular passion for those related to Sustainable Food and Land Use. She is responsible for the creation of the Migration & Me Program which came about as the result of the realized concern that there were not enough people of color, mainly brown and black people, who were visibly engaged in available extracurricular outdoor activities, stewardship, and Earth care.

Brian McCammack is the author of Landscapes of Hope: Nature and the Great Migration in Chicago (Harvard University Press, 2017) and Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at Lake Forest College, where he teaches courses on environmental history and politics. Landscapes of Hope recently won the 2018 George Perkins Marsh Prize for best book in environmental history from the American Society for Environmental History. In Landscapes of Hope, he examines the deep connections to nature that black Chicagoans forged in the first half of the twentieth century. The Forest Preserves of Cook County were particularly notable in this regard because African Americans not only sought out leisure there despite racial segregation and intimidation, but the labor of young black men in the Civilian Conservation Corps also helped improve and even build areas like the Skokie Lagoons.

Arnold Randall is the General Superintendent of the Forest Preserves of Cook County. The Forest Preserves of Cook County, established over a century ago, is one of the oldest and largest urban conservation districts in the United States, managing nearly 70,000 acres of diverse habitat across Cook County and offering recreation and education programs for audiences of all ages and from all walks of life. But preserving nature today in the nation’s second largest county comes with its own particular challenges – a lack of funding, climate change, and an urban population often out of touch with nature. The Forest Preserves is actively working with partners to provide a variety of programs that link diverse and urban populations with nature, including a Conservation Corps job training program and robust camping program at five new campgrounds.

Kim Ruffin is an Associate Professor of English at Roosevelt University, author of Black on Earth: African-American Ecoliterary Traditions (U. of Georgia Press, 2010), and nature-loving Certified Forest Therapy Guide.

 

Chicago Agreement on Climate & Community: Local Voices

A week before the Chicago Climate Community Forum was held on 3 Dec 2017 at the Field Museum, I was fortunate to participate in the filming of the newly released Chicago Agreement on Climate & Community, which debuted at the forum attended by over 2,000 people last Sunday. Here’s the video, which brings to life the text of the Agreement.

https://vimeo.com/245263516

The Agreement is a living document which you can read, provide feedback on, and sign (if you so wish) yourself and/or on behalf of an organization. Please share this video and the Chicago Community Partnership website with people you know as we build a movement to mitigate climate change here throughout the Chicago region.

Oxfam Hunger Banquet Today @RooseveltU 1pm

I’m honored to deliver a guest faculty lecture at this event today at Roosevelt University. Please come and engage in a meaningful conversation about how food insecurity is prevalent and relates to our community while you learn more about issues of hunger, sustainability and how you can help. Please register for the event here.

Sponsored by the Black Student Union and the RU Counseling Center, the Oxfam Hunger Banquet provides a chance for us to address the severity of food insecurity and starvation as it relates to our community, and will assist in fostering a community of care that will allow us to join in the fight against inequality, injustice, and oppression. Oxfam is a global organization working to end the injustice of poverty.

Roosevelt University’s “American Dream Reconsidered” Conference Planned for Sept. 12-15

Students, colleagues, and friends — please attend and participate in this major conference at Roosevelt next month, which should be a galvanizing week on our campus. The theme couldn’t be more timely, considering the tensions, rancor, and controversies of the current election season. In particular, I’m looking forward to speaking on a faculty panel addressing the presidential election (Wed 9/14, 4:15pm) and participating in Service Day on 9/15. The following text is from Roosevelt’s official announcement of the conference. Be sure to register soon!

RU Chicago and US flagWhat does the American Dream mean today? That’s the topic of a major conference Roosevelt University will be hosting Sept. 12-15 in Chicago.

At more than a dozen lectures and discussions, leading American scholars, activists and entrepreneurs will analyze the American Dream and how it affects millennials, education, health care, real estate, immigration, politics and more.

PrezAli at RU“The American Dream is about every individual who aspires to achieve more in life,” said Ali Malekzadeh, president of Roosevelt University and a native of Iran. “Understanding our national ethos of democracy and equality has never more urgent. At the American Dream Reconsidered Conference, we will present many viewpoints on what it means to be an American in these challenging times.”

The conference, sponsored by BlueCross BlueShield of Illinois, McDonald’s Corporation and other organizations, also celebrates Malekzadeh’s first year in office. It is being held in lieu of formal and expensive presidential installation ceremonies commonly held on university campuses.  Instead, President Malekzadeh has led an effort to discuss the future of the American Dream and initiate a new scholarship program for six outstanding Roosevelt students. Among the highlights of the first annual American Dream Reconsidered Conference are:

• A conversation with PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel on “The American Dream — Globalization, Technology and Progress.” (Sept. 13, 12:30-1:45 p.m.)

•  A lecture by Pedro Noguera, distinguished professor of Education at UCLA, on “The Five Principles of Courageous Leadership to Guide Achievement of Every Student.” (Sept. 12 , 6:00-7:30 p.m., Roosevelt’s Goodman Center)

•  A panel discussion on “The Current State of the American Dream” featuring John W. Rogers Jr., founder and CEO of Ariel Investments; Melissa Bean, Midwest chair of JP Morgan Chase and former member of the U.S. Congress; Rabbi Abie Ingber, executive director of the Center for Interfaith Community Engagement at Xavier University and Ali Malekzadeh, Roosevelt president. (Sept. 14, 9:30 to 10:45 a.m.)

Jelani Cobb
Jelani Cobb, professor at Univ of CN

• “A Conversation on Justice, Race and the American Dream” with Martha C. Nussbaum, the Ernst Freund distinguished service professor of law and ethics at the University of Chicago and Jelani Cobb, professor of journalism at Columbia University and staff writer at the New Yorker magazine. (3:30 to 5 p.m., Sept. 13)

• “A Conversation on Community Leadership and Social Justice,” moderated by Samuel Betances, and including Tom Burrell, founder of Burrell Communications; Gloria Castillo, president and CEO of Chicago United; Father Michael Pfleger, St. Sabina’s Church; Dana Suskind, University of Chicago Medicine and founder of the Thirty Million Words Initiative and Omar Yamini, activist and author. (Sept. 12, 1:30 to 3 p.m.)

Other panel discussions during the week focus on: immigration (Sept. 14, 2 to 3:15); the Affordable Care Act (Sept. 13, 9:30 to 11 a.m.); the 2016 presidential election (Sept. 14, 4:15 to 5:45 p.m.); real estate (Sept. 13, 9:30 to 11 a.m.); and corporate America (Sept. 14, 4:15 to 5:45 p.m.). There is also a film on millennials created by undergraduate students.

On the last day of the conference, Thursday, Sept. 15, Roosevelt will award BlueCross BlueShield of Illinois American Dream Scholarships to outstanding Roosevelt students.  The University community will also participate in the American Dream Service Day, when students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends of the University will volunteer at 30 nonprofit organizations throughout the Chicago area.

Eleanor Roosevelt with RU students in 1945
Eleanor Roosevelt with RU students in 1945

Roosevelt University, home of the American Dream Reconsidered Conference, was founded in 1945 to protest discriminatory racial and religious college admission quotas, and remains dedicated to providing access to higher education for all qualified students.

“Education is the key to achieving the American Dream,” President Malekzadeh said.  “That’s why Roosevelt is hosting this conference.”

The American Dream Reconsidered Conference is free and open to the public, however reservations are requested. For more details and to register, visit: www.Roosevelt.edu/americandream. The conference will be centered at Roosevelt University, 430 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago, with additional events at RU’s campus in Schaumburg, IL.