David Cole, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, will present Union’s annual lecture on American Constitutionalism on Monday, Sept. 20.
David Cole
His talk, “Constitutional Rights, Human Rights and Guantanamo: Bush’s Legacy, Obama’s Challenge,” will be in Memorial Chapel at 7 p.m. and is free and open to the public.
Cole is a volunteer staff attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights, a legal affairs correspondent for The Nation and a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books. He is the author of six books, including “No Equal Justice: Race and Class in the American Criminal Justice System, (chosen by the Boston Book Review as the best non-fiction book, 1999) and “Enemy Aliens: Double Standards and Constitutional Freedoms in the War on Terrorism" (American Book Award winner, 2004).
He has litigated many significant constitutional cases, including Texas v. Johnson and United States v. Eichman, which extended First Amendment protection to flag burning. He has also been involved in numerous cases involving civil liberties and national security.
Cole’s talk is co-sponsored by the Office of the President, Office of Minerva Programs, Political Science Department, Philosophy Department and the American Studies program.
The Alpha of New York chapter of Phi Beta Kappa will host a talk by Herbert Gintis, external professor at the Santa Fe Institute and professor of economics at Central European University, Budapest, on Monday, Sept. 20 at 7:30 p.m. in the Nott Memorial.
Herbert Gintis
The talk, “Moral Sentiments and Material Interests: The Foundation of Cooperation in Economic Life,” is part of the Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar program. It is free and open to the public.
In addition, Gintis will meet with Economics Lecturer Ellen Foster’s first-year preceptorial class Monday at 10:30 a.m. in Beuth House, Seminar Room 104 and will present a seminar, “Unification of the Behavioral Sciences,” at 3:15 p.m. in Social Sciences 110.
On Tuesday, he will present an undergraduate mathematics seminar, “Some Antinomies in Epistemic Game Theory and the Modal Logics of Knowledge, Belief and Rationality,” at 4 p.m. in Bailey 207.
Beuth House will host an informal lunch with Gintis from 12:50 to 1:50 p.m. Monday; on Tuesday, Wold House will host an informal lunch from 12:45 to 1:55 p.m. Faculty and students are invited to both lunches.
At Central European University, Gintis heads a multidisciplinary research project, “The Social and Mental Dynamics of Cooperation,” funded by the European Science Foundation.
He has taught at Harvard University and the University of Massachusetts, and has been a visiting professor at the University of Siena, University of Paris, Columbia University, New York University and Harvard.
He is the author of “Game Theory Evolving” and “The Bounds of Reason,” and a co-author of “Schooling in Capitalist America,” “Foundations of Human Sociality,” “Moral Sentiments and Material Interests” and the upcoming “A Cooperative Species.”
Gintis is an editor of the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization and of Games, and his reviews appear regularly in publications such as Science and Nature.
Founded in 1776, Phi Beta Kappa is the nation’s oldest academic honor society. It has chapters at 280 colleges and universities, and more than 600,000 members. Union’s chapter was established in 1817.
Under the Visiting Scholar program, distinguished scholars spend two days on a campus, meeting informally with students and faculty members, taking part in classroom discussions and giving a public lecture. The idea is to contribute to the intellectual life of the institution by promoting an exchange of ideas between Visiting Scholars and the resident faculty and students.
A Hollywood studio chief, a scientific researcher and a politician are Union’s latest “Notables,” now on view in Schaffer Library’s Thelma and Kenneth Lally Reading Room on the first floor.
Alan Horn, Theodore W. Berger and Joseph Christopher Yates are part of the rotating exhibit. Each person selected either studied or worked at Union.
Horn, Class of 1964, is president and COO of Warner Bros. Among other accomplishments, he brought the unforgettable characters of the Harry Potter series from the pages of J. K. Rowling’s novels to the big screen.
Berger, Class of 1972, is in the business of engineering replacement parts for the brain. His work on developing implantable neural prostheses is helping to move the fields of bioengineering, neuroscience and medicine to a whole new level.
Yates became the first mayor of Schenectady in 1798, at the age of 30. He also served as a New York State Senator and was the youngest member of the original board of trustees of Union, serving from 1795 until his death in 1837. For the full story, click here.
Check out the central campus calendar at calendar.union.edu to learn about events and activities, and submit event requests to the Calendar if you want publicity.
The Times Union recently spoke with Lt. Col. Joseph R. Clearfield '93, who led a team of Marine commandos who seized a German cargo ship hijacked by pirates off the coast of Yemen.
At Union, Clearfield was a history major who played football and lacrosse.
