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Director (or send email to emeriti@emory.edu) Letters to the Editor Click on the above link to let us know what you think (or send email to emeriti@emory.edu)! |
Lunch Colloquium
Kipton Jenson
March 16, 2020
WEBCAST ONLY
Kipton Jenson
March 16, 2020
Sheth Lecture
Rosemary Magee
April 1, 2020
Lunch Colloquium
BookFest 2020
April 20, 2020
WEBCAST ONLY
BookFest 2020
April 20, 2020
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This issue of our newsletter is sent to members and friends of the Emory University Emeritus College (EUEC). I hope the newsletter will help keep you informed about our activities and help you feel connected with our members throughout the U.S. On the left are links to our website and links to contact either me or the EUEC office.
With best wishes,
Gray
Gray F. Crouse Director, EUEC
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 Message from the Director
Our room was full last week, evidence that members knew we would be in for a fascinating and topical talk. Pearl Dowe certainly delivered and helped us understand what we saw unfold the next day on Super Tuesday. If you missed it, you can read Gretchen Schulz's article below, and thanks to Don O'Shea's help, the recording of her talk is already on our videos page. You can also see the links to news organizations that offered her thoughts on the day after Super Tuesday.
Kipton Jensen's Lunch Colloquium next week is timely in a different way. It seems that, more than ever, we need people preaching the message of Howard Thurman--a message that we certainly do not hear from the current administration.
Thanks to the help of some of our members, we are offering another series of Retirement Seminars this semester. Steve Nowicki gave the first one last month on the topic of "Some Thoughts about Retirement" and as always, he did a great job. For the first time, we tried doing a live webcast, and that turned out to be a very popular option, as more people joined virtually than in person. The recording of his seminar is posted on our website videos page under "Retirement Seminars." Peter Sebel will offer the second seminar later this month on the ever-popular topic of financing one's retirement.
It is always great to welcome new members. It is a special vote of confidence to have faculty who are not yet retired opt to join. We also celebrate the fact that our Medshare volunteers recently observed the seventh anniversary of their volunteer work.
I am very grateful to Gretchen Schulz, Ann Hartle, and Marge Crouse for help with editing and proofing.
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Lunch Colloquium--Monday, March 16
Howard Thurman: "Tutor to the World"
The Luce Center Room 130 11:30-1:00
Kipton Jensen, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Director of the Leadership Studies Program in the Andrew Young Center for Global Leadership, Morehouse College
Click here to read more below about this Lunch Colloquium
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Lunch Colloquium--Monday, March 2
The Chaos the DNC Created
Pearl Dowe, Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Political Science and African American Studies, Oxford College and Emory University
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New Members
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A group of our members has been volunteering nearly every month of the year for seven years at Medshare! Shown above are the people who volunteered last month:
Jo Ann Dalton, Jane Mashburn, Julianne Daffin (not pictured), Brenda Bynum, Judy Robinson, Judy Winograd, Marianne Skeen, Liza Davis, Carol Sandlin, Maureen Kelley, Helen O'Shea, Kathy Matthews, and Marianne Scharbo-DeHaan.
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Walking the Campus with Dianne
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Lunch Colloquium--Monday, March 16
Howard Thurman: "Tutor to the World"
Kipton Jensen, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Director of the Leadership Studies Program in the Andrew Young Center for Global Leadership, Morehouse College
Howard Thurman (1899-1981) is one of the unsung heroes of the civil rights movement in America. Having met with Gandhi in 1936, he quickly appropriated and adeptly applied the philosophy of nonviolence to the problem of racism in America, eventually and memorably mentoring Martin Luther King in his application of that philosophy. However, as Kipton Jensen demonstrates in his most recent work, Howard Thurman: Philosophy, Civil Rights, and the Search for Common Ground (2019), the reach of this extraordinary man's thinking extended to an entire generation of activists, making him the man his wife has described as a "tutor to the world." Himself an activist as well as a philosopher, he preached the power of the love that can get us past hatred, through reconciliation, and into a peaceful and productive life shared on "common ground." And, speaking of preaching, Kipton will also discuss Thurman's Sermons on the Parables, subject of another book that he recently co-edited with Emory (and Oxford) professor of religion, David Gowler.
About Kipton Jensen
Kipton Jensen received a BA in Classical Languages from the University of Nebraska in 1987, an MA in the Program in Philosophy from the University of Kentucky in 1989, and a PhD in Philosophy from Marquette University in 1996.
Prior to coming to Morehouse College, he taught philosophy at the University of Botswana (2004-2008). His research in Botswana on the role of traditional healers and faith communities in public health was published as Parallel Discourses: Religious Identity and HIV Prevention in Botswana (2012). Jensen also published Hegel: Hovering (2012). Jensen's scholarly essays deal with the philosophy of religion, social philosophy, pragmatism, nonviolence, and the philosophy of education. As a graduate student at Marquette University, Jensen studied in Karlsruhe, Germany (1994-1996). As a Fulbright Scholar at Martin-Luther-Universität (1999-2000), in Halle, Germany, Jensen taught courses in American transcendentalism and American pragmatism. Jensen was subsequently a visiting scholar at Harvard University in 2001 and Emory University in 2009. He came to Morehouse in 2010. Besides the books mentioned above, his recent publications include "Howard Thurman and the African American Nonviolent Resistance Tradition" and "Pedagogical Personalism: Mays as well as Thurman and King at Morehouse." Jensen is presently editing a Festschrift on the life and work of Preston King, who is a scholar-in-residence at the Andrew Young Center for Global Leadership. As a professor in the Morehouse AYCGL leadership studies program, as well as in the department of philosophy and religion, Jensen teaches a first-year experience course that focuses on socio-ethical leadership as exemplified in "Mays, Thurman and King." Jensen's approach to teaching is collaborative, interdisciplinary, and cosmopolitan. Jensen has co-taught courses at Morehouse on Martin Luther King and Racial Capitalism, Violence and Nonviolence, and the Philosophy of Science. He co-advises the honor society in philosophy, Phi Sigma Tau, serves as a mentor in the Mellon-Mays program, and participates in an inter-institutional political theory colloquium series, SOPHIA-ATL. Since coming to Morehouse, Jensen has taught summer courses in Shanghai and Beijing, China, as well as traveling with students and colleagues to Germany, Sweden, Ireland, and India. In his free time, Kipton enjoys painting portraits of his philosophical heroes and heroines as well as building treehouses. Kipton lives with his wife and children in Decatur. Click here to return to top |
Lunch Colloquium--Monday, March 2
The Chaos the DNC Created
Pearl Dowe, Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Political Science and African American Studies, Oxford College and Emory University
On Monday, March 2, our emeriti constituency enjoyed a visit from one of Emory's newest faculty members, Pearl Dowe, an expert in American politics (and African American political leadership in particular) whom Emory enticed away from the University of Arkansas to serve as the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Political Science and African American Studies, with a home base on the Oxford College campus and affiliate responsibilities on the Atlanta campus, as well. Given all that had been going on with the race for the Democratic nomination--including the surprising results of the South Carolina primary--and given anxious anticipation of what would go on the very next day, Super Tuesday--it's not surprising that a capacity crowd turned out to hear Pearl address "The Democratic Party and the 2020 Election."
Taking the average age of our attendees into account (with many of us as old as the top two contenders for the presidency, i.e., really old), Pearl decided to start her presentation with a review of the highlights (or we might better say lowlights) of the electoral history we've seen unfold in the course of our lifetimes. She began her PowerPoint with a photo from the 1968 Democratic Convention, an all too vivid reminder of the bad old good old days when party bosses ruled the nomination process and gave us . . . Hubert Humphrey. Sigh. But, as Pearl reminded us, that nomination process was so widely perceived as UNdemocratic that it did prompt change, via the McGovern-Fraser Reforms that shifted the balance of power to primary elections and caucuses that would privilege rank-and-file Democrats. Woo hoo.
And then we had McGovern's 1972 campaign. And Jimmy Carter's 1980 re-election campaign. Sigh. And (as Wikipedia puts it)
Further soul-searching took place among party leaders, who argued that the pendulum had swung too far in the direction of primary elections over insider decision-making, with one May 1981 California white paper declaring that the Democratic Party had "lost its leadership, collective vision and ties with the past," resulting in the nomination of unelectable candidates. A new 70-member commission headed by Governor of North Carolina Jim Hunt was appointed to further refine the Democratic Party's nomination process, attempting to balance the wishes of rank-and-file Democrats with the collective wisdom of party leaders and to thereby avoid the nomination of insurgent candidates exemplified by the liberal McGovern or the anti-Washington conservative Carter.
This time, the recommended reform involved
the setting aside of unelected and unpledged delegate slots for Democratic members of Congress and for state party chairs and vice chairs (so-called "superdelegates"). With the original Hunt plan, superdelegates were to represent 30% of all delegates to the national convention, but when it was finally implemented by the Democratic National Committee for the 1984 election, the number of superdelegates was set at 14%. Over time this percentage has gradually increased,
and it now stands at about 16%. As for that 1984 election, Pearl was still a child, but most of us in her audience were entering middle age by then. We remember Mondale beating Jesse Jackson for the nomination--and running with Geraldine Ferraro. And winning Minnesota and D. C. Sigh.
By the time Pearl had grown up--and we had grown WAY up--DNC attempts to reform the nomination process had still not solved the problems that had so plagued us in the past (and had, in fact, created new problems). Besides ongoing discussion (okay, make that screaming arguments) about the schedule for primaries and caucuses, discussion/screaming arguments about superdelegates continued. "In 2016, most superdelegates endorsed Hillary Clinton before anyone voted--and Sanders' campaign complained about their influence and power" (Washington Post). After many meetings that crafted elaborate proposals for addressing complaints, the so-called Unity Commission decided to (try to) do so by preventing superdelegates from voting on the first ballot instead of reducing their numbers or specifying whether their votes would have to be bound to the results of state primaries and caucuses or not. If there is a second ballot (plus) they can vote--and vote their conscience--like all regular delegates.
But what happens to delegates selected to represent a dropped-out candidate? It depends if they've been selected at the district level (in which case they are expected to vote for their candidate on the first ballot--though it would seem they need not do so) or at the statewide level (in which case they are reallocated among the viable candidates still standing). Or something to that effect. ARRGGGHHH.
Of course, the series of reforms in the nomination process that Pearl reviewed in her presentation--and that I've reviewed so briefly above--have been meant to address the MAJOR problem that too many still deny IS a major problem--namely, the UNdemocratic nature of so much that happens as Democrats pursue nominations and elections. Many maintain that attempts to take decision-making out of the hands of political insiders and put it in the hands of the voters (and voters representing ALL constituencies) have not been successful. Pearl referenced comments along these lines by Paul Frymer, a Professor of Politics at Princeton University, whose book Uneasy Alliances: Race and Party Competition (2nd ed., 2010) she highly recommends. In that book, he argues that party competition, for Democrats as well as Republicans, is "centered around racially conservative white voters, and that this focus on white voters has dire consequences for African Americans" (Goodreads).
A grim thought. A grim reality. But maybe, just maybe, what happened in South Carolina a week ago Saturday signals some significant change in this area. And maybe, just maybe, what happened on Super Tuesday does the same. Let's hope so. Even if the two top candidates for the Democratic nomination are white men as old as most of us--or older. Sigh.
--Gretchen Schulz (the only one responsible for opinions and errors here)
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New Members
New members are the lifeblood of any organization. Please make a special effort to welcome them to EUEC!
Timothy E. Davis, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor Emeritus of Emergency Medicine
David J. Ready, PhD, Assistant Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Members in Transition
Douglas S. Ander, MD, Professor of Emergency Medicine Joel Bowman, PhD, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Chemistry
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Walking the Campus with Dianne
The ducks on the window from the last outing can be found on the top floor of the Woodruff Library in the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library. The window is part of a lounge/observation area flanked by meeting rooms. The view, as you can see, is magnificent, especially on a sunny, clear day.
Formerly known simply as the Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library (MARBL), the Stuart A. Rose Library opened in 2015 after extensive renovation of the ninth and tenth floors of the Robert W. Woodruff Library. It bears the name of Stuart A. Rose, a businessman, rare-book collector, and generous philanthropist who provided the lead gift for the renovation. The Rose Library (as I've often heard it called) is a wonderful place with more than just ducks on a window. However, I'm not going to tell you any more than that for now -- we might visit the library for a future walk!
As I'm typing this, it is raining outside, as it has been for days and days and days and.... I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'm tired of the rain and want to walk outside without getting wet! With that being said, we'll stay inside (and dry) for our next walk.
This building is always full of people, whether it be students, faculty, staff or visitors from off campus attending classes, movie screenings, special lectures or sometimes, Emeritus Retirement Seminars!
Most hallways are polished brick and most walls are exposed concrete -- nothing fancy, but an interesting building just the same.
Where will you find this on the Emory Campus?
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Emory University Emeritus College The Luce Center
825 Houston Mill Road NE #206 Atlanta, GA 30329 |
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