Friday, October 2

UVM's Finest Hour Lecture Series

UVM's Finest Hour Lecture Series features some of UVM's top faculty members - including the recipients of the prestigious George V. Kidder Outstanding Faculty Award - who will open their classrooms to Homecoming attendees throughout the day. 

Please stop by registration to pick up a schedule of classes taught by UVM's finest professors.

All lectures will be held in the Davis Center's Livak Ballroom unless otherwise noted.

9:00 am - 9:50 am
Professor Doug Johnson
Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics
2008-2009 UVM Kroepsch-Maurice Excellence in Teaching Award Winner
The Power of Plagues: Infectious Diseases Then and Now
Dudley H. Davis Center - Livak Ballroom 
Infectious disease epidemics have had tremendous impacts on the social, political, and economic history of the world.   Even today, we are in the midst of at least five world-wide pandemics: AIDS, cholera, H1N1 influenza, malaria, and multi-drug resistant tuberculosis.  We will examine the effects of plagues (epidemics) on the course of human history, focusing on the bacteria and viruses that caused these devastating events.

10:00 am - 10:50 am
Professor Kenneth I. Gross
Department of Mathematics
1998 Kidder Award Recipient
Mathematics as a Second Language
Dudley H. Davis Center - Livak Ballroom 
"Dr. Gross is the founder of the Vermont Mathematics Initiative (VMI), a partnership of University of Vermont and the Vermont State Department of Education. Begun in 1999, the VMI is a comprehensive, statewide, master’s degree granting mathematics professional development program for elementary and middle school teachers.  The ultimate mission of the VMI is to improve the teaching of mathematics across Vermont and raise student achievement. To date, VMI has reached 575 teachers, representing roughly 50% of the elementary and middle schools in Vermont and 90% of the school districts.  Through these teachers VMI has an impact on the learning of over 10,000 Vermont students annually. Formal program evaluation, begun in 2004, has shown that the VMI has had a major impact on the teachers themselves, their classroom practice, and, most importantly, students in schools with VMI teachers.

This presentation will review the importance of mathematics instruction and student learning at the elementary level, outline key ingredients in the success of the VMI including the use of English language grammar in learning mathematics; describe lessons learned over the past ten years; and provide ample time for questions and discussion.  The presentation is designed for a general audience and has no mathematics or education prerequisites."

11:00 am - 11:50 am
Professor Frank Bryan
Department of Political Science
2004 Kidder Award Recipient
Everything You Need to Know About Vermont -- in 30 Minutes or Less
Dudley H. Davis Center - Livak Ballroom
"In many ways, Vermont is an enigma -- liberal vision and conservative values, hard living and fierce loyalty to locality, feisty, taciturn, honest to a fault. What are the truths about the notion of 'Vermont' and why did the great Harvard historian, Bernard de Voto, say of it: 'There is no more Yankee than Polynesian in me but when I go to Vermont I feel like I am traveling toward my own place.'"

Noon - 12:50 pm
Professor Declan Connolly
College of Education & Social Services
Program Coordinator for Physical Education
Men's Rugby Coach
Strength Training and Aging: Surviving Until your 401K Recovers!"
Dudley H. Davis Center - Livak Ballroom
What are your biggest physical challenges with age? What is the best way for you to exercise to maintain your abilities such as strength and independence. Have we been doing it all wrong? This informative and enlightening lecture will open your eyes to how best to exercise and survive at least until your 401K recovers!!

1:00 pm - 3:50 pm
Professor Tony Magistrale Chair,
Department of English
2001 Kidder Award Recipient
The Deathless Lure of the Vampire 
Dudley H. Davis Center - Livak Ballroom
Tracing the undead from its literary origins in the romantic movement to its present-day manifestations in popular film, literature, television, and cereal boxes.  Cloves of garlic optional.

2:00 pm - 2:50 pm
Professor Mark A. Stoler
Professor Emeritus of History, Department of History
1984 Kidder Award Recipient
The Road to Iraq: Origins and Evolution of U.S. Interests in the Middle East 
Dudley H. Davis Center - Livak Ballroom
Today the Middle East is the focal point of U.S. foreign and military policies.  That was not always the case.  Indeed, the area was of marginal interest to the United States prior to World War II.  This lecture will explain how and why that changed so dramatically during the 1940s and 1950s, and how events since then have resulted in the present war and preoccupation with the region.

3:00 pm
George V. Kidder Homecoming Lecture-
Professor Elaine McCrate, Dept. of Economics,
2009 Kidder Award Recipient
Economics of Stereotyping 
Davis Center - Livak Ballroom 
Accurate information on individuals, not stereotypes about the groups they are part of, is necessary when employers make wage and hiring decisions. But there is abundant evidence that many employers subscribe to the same gender and race stereotypes as most of the U.S. population. Why do some employers believe group stereotypes (often acting on them when hiring) when they would do much better to gather and use information on individuals?

This lecture concerns the economics and psychology of imperfect information in labor markets. We will consider characteristics such as "commitment," "work ethic," "motivation," and "drive" that are important to employers, hard to evaluate, and strongly linked to stereotypes, and will put this problem in the historical context of American race and gender relations.

Lecture followed by a reception at 4:00 pm in the Livak Fireplace Lounge.