Convocation Calendar

All full-time students enrolled at Centre for the full academic year are required to earn a total of 12 convocation credits. All convocations earn 1 credit except Founders Day and Honors Night, which earn 2 credits each.

To receive convocation credit, each student must have their ID card swiped, be seated before the program begins, remain present throughout the full program, and swipe their own ID card immediately following the event.

For the entire convocation policy, refer to the Student Handbook. For up-to-date changes in the Convocation Calendar, please see Notesworthy online. Students may access their convocation attendance record at anytime through CentreNet. If you have questions, please contact Megan Noltemeyer at 238-5341 or megan.noltemeyer@centre.edu.

Please note that seating may be limited for some events. It is wise to arrive early to all convocations to ensure that your ID card is swiped and you have a seat. If all seats are taken, students will not be allowed to enter the convocation event.

Seating capacities:

• Combs Center/Warehouse (approximately 200)

• Evans Lively Room of Old Carnegie (90)

• Newlin Hall (orchestra 250; grand tier 1180)

• Vahlkamp Theatre (170)

• Weisiger Theatre (350)

• Young Hall - Room 113 (188)

2012 Centre & Spring Term Convocations

*Events that have an admission charge to the public are marked with an asterisk. Students are not charged for these convos.

*St. Petersburg State Orchestra
Friday, January 13 — 8 p.m. (Newlin Hall)
Founded in the years following World War II, the Orchestra has achieved broad acknowledgement and popularity throughout Russia and continues to develop its repertoire strengths and build a devoted audience. With a diverse range of programs, from the Baroque to music of the 20th century to newly commissioned compositions, the Orchestra tours regularly throughout the world. Le Monde in Paris hailed, “The Orchestra was sensational!” For its Norton Center debut, under the baton of conductor and music director Roman Leontiev, the program includes Richard Wagner’s Prelude and Liebestod from the opera Tristan und Isolde; Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major, Op. 19, featuring acclaimed pianist Alexander Pirozhenko; and Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 5. Bold, powerful, and beautiful, this orchestra’s robust spirit will not disappoint.

*Martin L. King, Jr. Convocation & Musical Salute
Monday, January 16 — 6:30 p.m. (Newlin Hall)
The Kentucky State University “Concert Choir” will present a musical tribute in honor of the life and legacy of Dr. King. This nationally recognized choir, under the direction of Dr. Carl M. Smith, along with the Centre College Choir and choirs from Danville, Boyle, and Mercer Count High Schools will present selections that highlight his success and rise to worldwide prominence. This celebration will definitely represent “A Day On — Not a Day Off” as the Norton Center stage will host over 150 performers participating in this musical salute to Dr. King.

Dark Life: How Life Underground Can Point to Life in the Stars
Tuesday, January 17 — 7:30 p.m. (Young Hall 113)
Caves are unusual habitats on our planet: isolated by geology from sunlight energy and nutrients. Yet despite this isolation, caves contain unique microbial communities. Within these communities, mutualistic and competitive interactions lead to a remarkable diversity, which can impact both the ecosystem and the environment in which these microorganisms live. The sum of these impacts can give us clues as to what microbial activities have shaped the environment, both here and elsewhere that life could be found.

Founders Day
Wednesday, January 18 — 11 a.m. (Newlin Hall)
Dr. Barry Mills, President of Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, will be this year’s Founder’s Day speaker. His speech will focus on technology in the context of the liberal arts.

Fetal Origins of Adult Disease
Tuesday, February 7 — 7 p.m. (Vahlkamp Theatre)
Questions related to the impact of nutrients on everything from genetics to whole body metabolism continue to multiply, especially as obesity and associated chronic diseases become increasingly pervasive in industrialized societies. Dr. Kevin Pearson works at the University of Kentucky Graduate Center for Nutritional Sciences. His research is focused toward fetal origins of adult disease. Generally, it has to do with the western lifestyle and how that affects our children's physiological response.

Centre Student Debate: State vs. Federal Rights
Thursday, February 9 — 11:20 a.m. (Weisiger Theatre)
Centre Democrats and Centre Republicans debate on current topical issue as it relates to being a state vs. federal right.

Strategies for Human Mating
Thursday, February 16 — 7:30 p.m. (Vahlkamp Theatre)
Dr. David Buss earned his Ph.D. in evolutional psychology at University of California, Berkeley in 1981. He was assistant professor for four years at Harvard University and a professor at the University of Michigan for eleven years before joining the faculty of The University of Texas in the 1990s. Buss leads the field in evolutionary psychology, relatively new discipline that draws insights from evolutionary theory, biology, cognitive psychology, cultural anthropology, and behavioral economics. Evolutionary psychologists argue that the brain produces genetically-based cognitive programs that affect survival and reproduction and thus can be adaptations. In his research, Dr. Buss uses evolutionary principles (variation, inheritance, and differential reproductive success) to explain how human behaviors and emotions such as love, jealousy, desire, sex, and violence could evolve as adaptations that enhance survival and reproduction. Buss has published over 200 scientific articles and many books, including The Evolution of Desire, The Dangerous Passion, The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology, The Murderer Next Door, which introduces a new theory of homicide from an evolutionary perspective, and Why Women Have Sex. He is also the author of Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind, which is currently in its third edition, was released in 2007. His latest book is entitled The Evolution of Personality and Individual Differences.

The Distillation of Sorrow in Ancient Greek and Modern Culture
Tuesday, February 21 — 7 p.m. (Weisiger Theatre)
The ancient Greeks believed human beings learn by suffering. How much does suffering affect how we live our lives? Dr. Thomas Palaima, Professor of Classics at The University of Texas at Austin and a MacArthur Fellow, will discuss how ancient and modern societies view the human experience of suffering. He will draw on the words of Homer, Aeschylus, Kurt Vonnegut, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as war music and films like Tender Mercies (1983).

Miss Representation
Wednesday, February 22 — 7 p.m. (Newlin Hall)
Writer/Director Jennifer Siebel Newsom brings together some of America’s most influential women in politics, news, and entertainment to give us an inside look at the media’s message. Miss Representation explores women’s under-representation in positions of power by challenging the limited and often disparaging portrayal of women in the media. As one of the most persuasive and pervasive forces in our culture, media is educating yet another generation that women’s primary value lies in their youth, beauty, and sexuality—not in their capacity as leaders. Through the riveting perspectives of youth and the critical analysis of top scholars, Miss Representation will change the way you see media.

Flamenco, Art of Emotion
Monday, February 27 — 7:30 p.m. (Weisiger Theatre)
This one-hour and a half “performance/talk” will feature Graciela Perrone, one of the few artists that has been exploring Flamenco Art through canvases, and recently through Video Art. Bold and compelling, her oil paintings capture the expressions and movement of flamenco with passion. She has found a way to take these dramatically different art forms and blend them together. Through her interactive flamenco workshop, Centre students will experience an intense introduction to this art deeply embedded in the Spanish soul.

Centre Queers and Allies Q&A
Wednesday, February 29 — 8 p.m. (Weisiger Theatre)
Members of the Centre community will illuminate the incredible diversity of gender, sexuality, and belief that pervade on campus through first-hand accounts of nonconforming experiences that are powerful, honest, and sometimes hilarious. Centre Queers and Allies will confront stereotypes, challenge beliefs, and break the silence surrounding gender and sexuality in small-town America. They will then invite the audience to participate in an open and engaging conversation about how these experiences affect the entire Centre community.

The Muslim Jesus and a Table in Heaven
Tuesday, March 6 — 7 p.m. (Weisiger Theatre)
Gabriel Said Reynolds will discuss a fascinating passage in the Qur’an where Jesus calls down a table of food from heaven. Reynolds, a premier scholar on the relationship between the Qur’an and Biblical literatures at Notre Dame, will review the ways that this portion of the Qur’an has been believed to relate to the Bible. In so doing, Reynolds will explore what this passage suggests for how the core revelation of Islam may be engaged with the New Testament.

Life Stories
Thursday, March 8 — 7 p.m. (Weisiger Theatre)
Three Centre professors will be speaking about the paths their lives have taken. They often begin with their childhood and end with how they ended up at Centre. It’s a fun way for students to learn about the lives of their professors outside of an academic context.

Paul Knitter - Christian Atonement: From a Buddhist Perspective
Monday, March 12 — 8 p.m. (Young Hall 113)
Even if we take the idea of atonement symbolically, just what does it really mean? After reviewing past answers to that question, Dr. Paul Knitter will explore how, with a little help from Buddhism, Christians might come to an understanding of atonement that is both faithful to Christian tradition and more relevant to our contemporary context. Dr. Knitter is Paul Tillich Professor of Theology, World Religions, and Culture at Union Theological Seminar in New York City. He has been at the forefront of discussions on religious pluralism and interreligious dialogue.

On Tour: Centre Singers & Centre Brass a Mexico
Tuesday, March 13 — 7:30 p.m. (Weisiger Theatre)
Centre Singers led by Barbara Hall and Centre Trumpets led by Vince DiMartino join together to present a concert of American music that will be performed on their tour of the Yucatan Peninsula.

David Kassan: Contemporary Master
Wednesday, March 14 — 7:30 p.m. (Vahlkamp Theatre)
David Kassan is an important American painter, specializing in portraiture. Gallery Henoch in New York City, a leader in contemporary realist painting, represents him. His work has been shown very widely, both in America and internationally. He is an accomplished teacher, who has presented lectures and workshops across the country and in Australia, Iceland, Belgium and Portugal. His art has been published frequently in print and online. His video demonstration of digital portrait painting, done on an iPad, was seen by over a million viewers and linked on the Apple website.

The Ginkgo Light: A Confluence of American and Chinese Poetry
Monday, March 26 — 7 p.m. (Vahlkamp Theatre)
One of America’s most important poets, Arthur Sze, will be visiting to share his talents and acclaimed work with the campus community. An American Book Award winner, poet laureate of Santa Fe, and author of 8 books of poetry, Arthur will read a selection of his poems and discuss how exchanges with any leading contemporary Chinese poets have informed and influences his work. Arthur’s celebrated skill as a poet writing in English and participation in key meetings and festivals in China since the 1980s combine to offer a timely and poignant example of contemporary cross-cultural exchange and writing in America.

SGA Debate
Monday, March 26 — 8 p.m. (Newlin Hall)
Candidates for President, Speaker of the House, and Vice President of Programming will present their ideas for the 2012-2013 school year and answer questions from the student body.

*Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s Moulin Rouge, The Ballet
Tuesday, March 27 — 7:30 p.m. (Newlin Hall)
Premiered in 2009, Moulin Rouge® - The Ballet is an original burlesque-inspired storybook ballet with irrepressible “Gay Paree” style, razzle-dazzle dancing, eye-popping costumes, twinkling sets, and a score made up of well-known French music. Along with a rousing soundtrack featuring Offenbach, Ravel, Strauss, Debussy, and a dash of Piazzolla, the ballet features high-kicking choreography and a passionate story of love, ambition and heartbreak. “The Royal Winnipeg Ballet is the first company in the world to be granted permission by the notorious Moulin Rouge cabaret to use the name. And ooh la la, its reputation is safe in the hands of this great Canadian company.... More elegant than lewd, more provocative than rude, the ballet captures the bohemian flavor and bell époque glamour of the period” (Time Columnist). Le Droit calls the show “creative, original.... A sure-fire formula for seduction.”

The Science of Optics; The History of Art
Thursday, March 29 — 8 p.m. (Newlin Hall)
Dr. Charles M. Falco shows a wealth of evidence the artist David Hockney and he discovered that demonstrates optical instruments were in use—by artists, not scientists—nearly 200 years earlier than commonly thought possible. These discoveries account for the remarkable, but previously unexplained, transformation in the reality of portraits that occurred early in the 15th century. Dr. Falco is a world-renowned scientist and quite famous in the arts and sciences for the Hockney-Falco Thesis that the creators of some great works of art were assisted by optical imaging techniques.

The Two Things Your Mother Told You Never to Talk About: Religion and Politics
Monday, April 2 — 7:30 p.m. (Newlin Hall)
Professor David Campbell, a nationally recognized scholar in the field of religion and American politics, will take an in-depth look at the role of religion in the 2012 presidential election. Is there a “God gap” in the American electorate? How is the election shaped by the religion of the candidates? And how, in spite of the political divisions that result from religion, can America also be a religiously tolerant nation? Why have we not torn ourselves apart along the religious fault lines that have increasingly come to divide us? Among many other things, David Campbell is the co-author (with Robert Putnam) of American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us and the editor of A Matter of Faith: Religion in the 2004 Presidential Election.

Industrial Food Production and the Plight of Immigrant Workers
Tuesday, April 3 — 7 p.m. (Young Hall 113)
Gerardo Reyes-Chavez will speak on community organizing and actions in response to the treatment of those who work to support our industrial food system. The CIW has been active in changing the treatment, wages, and working conditions of tomato pickers supplying Taco Bell, McDonald’s, Burger King, Whole Foods, and Subway. Gerardo has worked in the fields since age 11, first as a peasant farmer in Zacatecas, Mexico, and then in the fields of Florida picking oranges, tomatoes, and watermelon. He joined the Coalition of Immokalee Workers shortly after his arrival in the United States in 2000. Since then Gerardo has been a key leader of the CIW, his work focusing both at the community level, mobilizing the Immokalee community around national actions in the CIW's Campaign for Fair Food, and more broadly at the consumer level across the country, raising awareness in support of the Campaign through presentations, workshops, and speeches. Gerardo has helped investigate several modern-day slavery operations, including going undercover to work on tomato farms and interviewing workers who have escaped from violent, brutal operations. He is today a key member of the CIW's negotiating team in talks with retail food and tomato industry leaders and has been instrumental in forging many of the CIW's Fair Food agreements.
(source: TED, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6fly-p3hu0)

*Brentano String Quartet
Thursday, April 5 — 7:30 p.m. (Newlin Hall)
Since its inception in 1992, the Brentano String Quartet has appeared throughout the world to popular and critical acclaim. While they have performed in the world’s most prestigious venues, including Carnegie Hall and the Sydney Opera House, they have served as the first Resident Quartet at Princeton University since 1999. During its first European tour, the Quartet was honored with the Royal Philharmonic Award for Most Outstanding Debut. “Their concert made it clear that these players could well be the best of the latest generation,” says the Philadelphia Enquirer. “Their level of individual technique was superb, while musical dialog necessary for rich chamber music was evident from first to last.” The Brentano String Quartet’s Norton Center debut includes Bach’s final contrapunctus from “Art of Fugue”; Bussoni’s String Quartet No. 2 in D-minor; and Beethoven’s String Quartet in B-flat major, Op. 130 with “Grosse Fugue” finale (Op. 133).

Attempting Much: Samuel Johnson, Lexicography, & the Uses of Failure
Tuesday, April 10 — 7:30 p.m. (Vahlkamp Theatre)
Professor Reddick is today’s leading scholar on the subject of Samuel Johnson’s monumental Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1755 and the most influential English dictionary until the twentieth century. In his lecture, Professor Reddick will discuss Johnson’s methods and long history of compiling and revising his Dictionary, during which he alters his approach to language from prescriptive to descriptive. In the process, Johnson meditates upon the act and science of lexicography as a variation, even a central manifestation, of the human structure of hope, disappointment, and failure, a structure Johnson incorporates throughout his writing, whether philosophical, critical, poetical, or fictional.

*Australian Chamber Orchestra with Dawn Upshaw
Friday, April 13 — 8 p.m. (Newlin Hall)
Internationally renowned, the Australian Chamber Orchestra is a product of its country’s vibrant, adventurous and enquiring spirit. Under the inspiring leadership of Artistic Director and Lead Violin Richard Tognetti since 1989, the ACO has performed as a flexible and versatile “ensemble of soloists”, in a variety of formations and collections. Joining the ACO for its Norton Center debut is four-time Grammy® Award-winning soprano Dawn Upshaw. Ms. Upshaw is the first vocalist to win a MacArthur “genius” grant for her role as an advocate for new music. She has achieved worldwide celebrity as a singer of opera and concert repertoire, and she sings with a warmth and radiance that have earned her the devotion of audiences everywhere. Ms. Upshaw and the ACO will perform a new work by Grammy® Award-winning composer Maria Schneider, who is known for her lush and lyrical compositions.

John C. Young Presentations
Saturday, April 14 — 10 a.m. & 1:30 p.m. (Young Hall 113)
Six seniors—Kara Beer (Anthropology), Trish Bredar (English), James Kalb (English and Music), Brian Klosterboer (International Studies), Kelsey Lownds (Music and Psychology), and Evis Muhameti (Sociology and Psychology)—will present the results of their John C. Young projects. Each student will be given 20 minutes to present their work and 10 minutes to answer questions about their work. Three presentations will occur in the morning session from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. and three presentations will occur in the afternoon session from 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Students may receive one convo credit for attentively listening to all of the presentations in the morning session and/or one convo credit for attentively listening to all of the presentations in the afternoon session. Thus, students can gain two convo credits for attendance at both sessions (or 6 presentations).
[Click here for symposium schedule.]

*The Mystery of Edwin Drood
Wednesday-Saturday, April 18-21 — 8 p.m. (Weisiger Theatre)
Charles Dickens' unfinished novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood has been given endings by countless authors, but here Rupert Holmes, in his triple role of composer, lyricist, and book author, added a highly democratic spin to his musical treatment: the audience chooses the murderer, the final coupling, the identity of Datchery (a detective), and thus the ending, from among literally hundreds of possible permutations!

Taking the Long View: Adapting a More Sustainable Future
Thursday, April 26th — 7:30 p.m. (Vahlkamp Theatre)
Dr. David Shi served as the 10th president of Furman University from 1994 to 2010. During that period, Furman solidified its stature as one of the nation’s finest liberal arts colleges and became a national leader in promoting sustainability. Shi was a charter signatory of the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment in 2006. During his presidency, Furman built the first LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental) certified building in South Carolina (there are now 7 LEED-certified buildings on campus). A leading figure in American higher education, Shi is also a board member of Second Nature, the non-profit organization based in Boston that is responsible for administering the Presidents’ Climate Commitment. A specialist in intellectual and cultural history, he is the author of several books, including Matthew Josephson, Bourgeois Bohemian (Yale University Press, 1980), The Simple Life: Plain Living and High Thinking in American Culture (Oxford University Press, 1985), which was a History Book Club selection, and Facing Facts: Realism in American Thought and Culture, 1850-1920 (Oxford University Press, 1994). He is also co-author, with the late George B. Tindall, of the best-selling textbook America: A Narrative History (W. W. Norton), now in its eighth edition. A member of Phi Beta Kappa, Shi received an honorary degree from Centre College in 2002.

Centre Orchestra Concerto Concert
Saturday, April 28 — 7:30 p.m. (Newlin Hall)
Centre College music students are selected by audition and perform a solo work with the Centre College Orchestra in their Spring Concert.

Honors Night
Tuesday, May 1 — 7 p.m. (Newlin Hall)
Join the Centre community to celebrate student achievements.

Spring Dance Concert
Thursday, May 3 — 8 p.m. (Weisiger Theatre)
The Spring Dance Concert is the culmination of the work of the Modern Dance Performance course taught by Rebecca Stephenson. Each year, it is a combination of work choreographed by dance professionals from throughout the Commonwealth as well as work choreographed by the advanced students from the class. It is always a wonderful evening.