Kathy Eldon

Dying to Tell the Story

Screening of the Emmy-nominated documentary followed by a discussion with filmmaker and founder of the Creative Visions Foundation.

When Kathy Eldon’s son Dan was twenty-one and working as Reuter’s youngest correspondent, he traveled to Somalia to cover a little-known famine threatening the lives of millions. Dan’s photos were among the first to awaken the world’s conscience and led to a multi-national relief mission, “Operation Restore Hope.” In 1993, Dan Eldon and three of his journalist colleagues were stoned to death by an angry Somali mob retaliating against a US air raid that resulted in civilian casualties. Dan’s sister, Amy Eldon, made the documentary Dying to Tell The Story, tracing Dan’s footsteps during his last assignment and interviewing journalists who cover war, including top frontline correspondents such as CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, BBC anchor Martin Bell, and British photographer Don McCullen. The film premiered at the United Nations and CNN has aired it in 200 countries.

Greg Mortenson

Promoting Peace through Education

Public Talk with multimedia

Nobel Peace Prize nominee Greg Mortenson explains how education, especially the education of girls, builds a culture of peace. Around the world, many children never receive an education. Instead they train as soldiers, work barefoot in rice fields, or are sold into prostitution. Without the knowledge gained through education, these countries are left to wallow in ignorance. “The real enemy is ignorance,” says Mortenson. “Fighting terrorism is based in fear, but promoting peace is based in hope.”

In conjunction with Greg Mortenson’s Year of Social Change presentation “Promoting Peace Through Education,” there will be a Children’s Book Drive taking place in the Campus Center lobby to benefit the local America Reads program. New or gently used children’s books will be accepted and those who do not have books to donate but would still like to participate will be encouraged to commit to purchasing a book and donating through an online wishlist. Amazon Book Drive.

Dr. Vandana Shiva

Soil Not Oil: Food Security in a Time of Climate Change

Public Talk

In this talk, Dr. Vandana Shiva connects the food crisis, peak oil, and climate change to show that a world beyond a dependence on fossil fuel and globalization is both possible and necessary. Bold and visionary, Shiva reveals how three crises are inherently linked and that any attempt to solve one without addressing the others will get us nowhere.

Michael Pollan

In Defense of Food: The Omnivore’s Solution

Public Talk

Real food–the kind of food your great-grandmother would recognize as food—is being undermined by science on one side and the food industry on the other, both of whom want us focus on nutrients, good and bad, rather than actual plants, animals and fungi. The rise of “nutritionism” has vastly complicated the lives of American eaters without doing anything for our health, except possibly to make it worse. Nutritionism arose to deal with a genuine problem–the fact that the modern American diet is responsible for an epidemic of chronic diseases, from obesity and type II diabetes to heart disease and many cancers–but it has obscured the real roots of that problem and stood in the way of a solution. In this talk, Pollan explores what the industrialization of food and agriculture has meant for our health and happiness as eaters, and looks at the growing national movement to renovate the food system.