Plenary Sessions

Sunday, July 19, 4:30 PM: Welcome Celebration and Opening Plenary

Welcome Ceremony
(Please be in your seats by 4:15 PM)

Dancers, music, drums, and kinetic figures! Give yourself plenty of time to arrive at the Oregon Convention Center for the conference's spectacular opening ceremony at 4:30 PM. For the safety of attendees and the numerous performing artists who will be entering from all aisles, we are unable to seat late arrivals between 4:30 PM to 4:45 PM.  Please arrive by 4:15 PM.

Students from Portland State University and Portland Community College will perform their original and improvisational theater piece inspired by the generous donation of kinetic figures and training from Michael Curry, international master of puppetry and kinetic theatrical design. The student’s work includes story development, space design, stage craft, movement and music and is the culmination of their spring and summer for-credit course work at both colleges. Don’t miss this extraordinary welcoming performance organized by the Portland Host Committee!

Opening Plenary

Building Sustainable Communities
Presenter: Susan Anderson, Director, Bureau of Planning and Sustainability City of Portland, OR

In 1993, under Anderson's leadership, the city became the first in the US to adopt a global warming policy. In 2008, for the third year in a row, SustainLane recognized Portland as the most sustainable city in the United States. Anderson served as the director of the Office of Sustainable Development and led the City's Energy Office, before the Bureau of Planning was added to her responsibility.
Portland #1 for sustainable cities......
www.sustainlane.com/us-city-rankings/cities/portland plus (in case you are wondering) Portland is one of the best for asthma suffers...
http://ownaportlandhome.blogspot.com/2009/03/another-high-portland-ranking.html

Oregon Environmental News

Monday, July 20, 8:30 AM: Plenary

Dear President Obama–Looking Beyond the Crisis to a New Future for Education in America 
Presenter: Jonathan Kozol, Award-Winning Author and Advocate for Educational Equality

Few people have had the impact that Jonathan Kozol has had to bring national recognition to the plight of schools and learning in America. His published works have received the National Book Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, and many others. Both an author and an activist, Kozol is an eloquent spokesperson for the disenfranchised and homeless. What would Kozol propose to our newly elected president; what thoughts would he share with President Obama about the future of higher education through the rich lens of his experience as an educational reformer?

In 1967, at the height of the civil rights movement, Kozol lost his teaching position for reading a Langston Hughes poem to his class of fourth graders. Death at an Early Age, a description of his first year as a teacher, was published in 1967 and received the 1968 National Book Award in Science, Philosophy, and Religion. Now regarded as a classic by educators, it has sold more than 2 million copies in the United States and Europe. In The Shame of the Nation, Kozol returned to the battle with his strongest, most disturbing work to date: a powerful exposé of conditions he had found in visiting and revisiting nearly 60 public schools in 30 different districts in 11 states. The Shame of the Nation, which appeared on the New York Times best-seller list the week that it was published, has since joined Amazing Grace, Savage Inequalities, and Death at an Early Age as required reading at most universities and as part of the curriculum for future teachers and for professional development in dozens of our major urban systems.

Kozol staunchly believes that in order to prepare students for civic effectiveness and global understanding, we must preserve the richness of the liberal arts while becoming flexible and astute about how we develop the learning environments of the future.

Book Signing

Kozol will have a book signing immediately following his plenary session on Monday morning, 10:00AM –10:30AM in the Oregon Ballroom at the Oregon Convention Center. Books available for purchase and signing will be Shame of the Nation, Letters to a Young Teacher, Death at an Early Age, Savage Inequalities, and Amazing Grace.

Wednesday, July 22, 10:45 AM: Closing Plenary

Mediated Culture and the Future of the University
Presenter: Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Kansas State University

It took tens of thousands of years for writing to emerge after humans spoke their first words. It took thousands more before the printing press and a few hundred again before the telegraph. Today a new medium of communication emerges every time somebody creates a new web application. A Flickr here, a Twitter there, and a new way of relating to others emerges. New types of conversation, argumentation, and collaboration are realized. Using examples from anthropological fieldwork in Papua New Guinea, YouTube, university classrooms, and "the future," this presentation will demonstrate the profound yet often unnoticed ways in which media "mediate" our conversations, classrooms, and institutions. We will then apply these insights to an exploration of the implications for how we may need to rethink the structure of the university, if not our understanding of "structure" itself.

Dubbed "the explainer" by Wired magazine, Michael Wesch is a cultural anthropologist exploring the impact of new media on society and culture. After two years studying the impact of writing on a remote indigenous culture in the rain forest of Papua New Guinea, he has turned his attention to the effects of social media and digital technology on global society. Wesch's videos on technology, education, and information have been viewed by millions, translated in over ten languages, and are frequently featured at international film festivals and academic conferences worldwide. Awards for his work include a Wired magazine Rave Award, and the 2008 CASE/Carnegie US Professor of the Year for Doctoral and Research Universities.

Listen to Michael Wesch's interview with Michael Hites, Assistant VP, Administrative Information Tech Services at the University of Illinois and SCUP PDC Committee Member.