Allegheny to Host Public Lecture Series on Energy and Society

Stanford University Lecturer Jeffrey Ball will lead off series on Sept. 25

Allegheny College will host a series of three public lectures this fall focused on U.S. energy from a variety of perspectives, including energy policy, the relationship between freshwater and energy resources, and environmental injustices associated with energy production and distribution.

Jeffrey Ball, scholar, journalist, and author on energy and the environment, will speak in the Tippie Alumni Center.

The first lecture, scheduled for 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 25, at the Tippie Alumni Center, features Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow Jeffrey Ball. Ball is an internationally renowned scholar, journalist, and author on energy and the environment. His work has appeared in Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, Fortune, and The New Republic, among many other outlets.

Ball is scholar-in-residence at Stanford University’s Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance and a lecturer at Stanford Law School. Prior to his post at Stanford, Ball was The Wall Street Journal’s environment editor. The title of Ball’s talk is “Sharp Fights and Hard Lessons in the Global Race for Cleaner Energy.”

In October, Dr. Robert Glennon, one of the nation’s thought leaders and commentators on the fresh-water supply, will deliver a talk on the intersection of water and energy. His address, “Our Thirst for Energy in a Warming, Water-Stressed World,” is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 16, in Allegheny’s Ford Memorial Chapel.

Finally, Dr. Julie Sze, professor of American studies at the University of California-Davis, will give a community address on Tuesday, Nov. 27, at 7 p.m. in the Tippie Alumni Center. Sze is the founding director of the Environmental Justice Project for UC-Davis’ John Muir Institute for the Environment. Sze’s research explores environmental justice and environmental inequality, and urban/community health and activism, among other themes.

The lecture series is funded in part through a grant from The Endeavor Foundation and the Allegheny College Environmental Prize Fund endowed by Bing and Mary Ewalt. Visits from these scholars are a key part of a course on The Future of Energy Policy, hosted by Allegheny’s Law & Policy program.

All three lectures are free and open to the public. Recent books published by Drs. Glennon (Unquenchable: America’s Water Crisis and What To Do About It) and Sze (Noxious New York) are available for circulation at the Meadville Public Library. Please contact Center for Political Participation Program Coordinator Shannon McConnell at (814) 332-6202 for more information or questions about this series.