United 2011 Session Descriptions

To find out when these UNITED events will take place, please refer to the UNITED 2011 schedule.

United in Art

Jan-Richard Kikkert and Tycho Saariste (Great Lakes Rooms, U.C.)
Architects Jan-Richard Kikkert and Tycho Saariste are visiting from the Netherlands to discuss NMU alumnus John Lautner's architecture. Reception to follow in the DeVos Museum.

UNITED in Art Reception (DeVos Museum)
Join Jan-Richard Kikkert and Tycho Saariste over cookies, lemonade, coffee, and tea for conversation and a lovely walk through the DeVos Art Museum.

United in Dance, Music and Theater

Jive & Swing Dance Workshop (Superior Room, U.C.)
Marge Sklar teaches a dance workshop on jive and swing to prepare for dancing to the Flat Broke Blues Band performance!

UNITED in Music and Dance (Superior Room, U.C.)
UNITED in Music and Dance: The Five Dakinis Dance Story Songs inspired by a Tibetan Buddhist mandala. Maria Formolo is joined by local musicians Jen Pickard, Leanne Hatfield, Annie Gooseman and NMU student Laura Nagle. After the performance, all who wish can free dance with the musicians inspired by the Five Dakinis, the elemental angles of Earth, Fire, Wind, Water, and Space.

The Beladinas, Middle Eastern Dance Troupe (Great Lakes Rooms, U.C.)
Witness Middle Eastern dance performed by Maggie Barch and the Beladinas, followed by a brief verbal presentation about the history of the dance, and its importance.

Flat Broke Blues Band  (Great Lakes Rooms, U.C.)
Featured performer
Flat Broke Blues Band will kick off UNITED in Music with a performance featuring music from their new CD.  Flat Broke is "an entertaining and danceable mix of blues and R&B classics along with a variety of original songs that showcase the talents of all of the band members."

American Indian Hoop Dancing  (Great Lakes Rooms, U.C.)
Featured Performers
Brianna Malinowski - Accomplished Native American Hoop Dancer will be accompanied by Brian Malinowski on Drums and Vocals

Impressions of Cuba 2011 and Music from the Spanish-speaking World  (Great Lakes Rooms, U.C.)
Amy Orf and Natasha Gallagher present "Impressions of Cuba 2011", followed by Amy Orf and with student Natasha Gallagher and Zach Bartel, guitarist, with a short musical performance on "Music from the Spanish-speaking World"

One Race One People One Peace (Great Lakes Rooms, U.C.)
FLOW Theater
Featured performers
FLOW theater is a four person traveling group from Columbus, Ohio. FLOW seeks to "empower the audience to become part of the solution" and move forward in a positive direction of promoting human diversity.

UNITED in Diversity

Teaching and Learning in Korea  (Great Lakes Rooms, U.C.)
Susan Morgan presents TaLK - Teach and Learn in Korea - is a perfect opportunity for NMU students and recent alumni to put Asia to work on their resume.  NMU has recently signed an agreement with NIIED, a division of the South Korean Ministry of Education, Science and Technology.  The agreement will send talented, curious and self-motivated NMU students to teach English language in elementary after-school programs in rural areas.  NIIED provides scholarship support, airfare, housing, and a four-week training period with orientation to the culture of South Korea - one of the world's oldest civilizations.  All this and the opportunity for academic credit!  Presentation includes videos of current TaLK scholars in action. Come, learn more about TaLK.

The Gift is in the Journey  (Great Lakes Rooms, U.C.)
April Lindala, Kenn Pitawanakwat, Grace Chaillier - "The Gift Is in the Journey" milestones of the Center for Native American Studies (CNAS). Display by April Lindala, Martin Reinhardt, and Tina Moses.

Conflict Resolution: Negotiating through Perspective Taking  (Great Lakes Rooms, U.C.)
Dr. Gary Stark and Director Human Resources Ann Sherman discus interest-based bargaining or 'win-win' negotiation. The influence behind interest-based bargaining is used for labor agreements and big transactions and to settle the smaller conflicts in your life.  Learn how principles like perspective-taking and focusing on each party's interests rather than their positions can achieve desired goals. The presenters have taught and used this technique extensively in their work in business and Human Resources.

Marketing a Small Business in Brazil (Mead)
Ray Amtmann and Dr. Daniel Carvalho de Rezende will be joining us from the Univeridade Federal de Lavras in Brazil.

Queer Teachers in K-12 Settings (Mead)
Callie Youngman presents experiences of LGBTQ educators.

Post Conflict Peace and Stability Operations in Iraq  (Great Lakes Rooms, U.C.)
After serving several months in Iraq, LTC. Kyle Rambo will share post-conflict peace and stability operations in Iraq.

One Book, One Community book discussion on The Lazarus Project. (Great Lakes Rooms, U.C.)
Dana Schulz of the One Book, One Community project leads a book discussion on The Lazarus Project. One Book, One Community provides an opportunity for the NMU community and Marquette County to share the joy of reading, the life of the mind, and the free exchange of ideas. The selected book is about Lazarus Averbuch, a recent immigrant and survivor of the infamous Kishinev pogrom, who tries to see Chicago's chief of police early on March 2, 1908, but he is shot to death before he can state his mission. The powers-that-be finger the undernourished young Jew as an anarchist and harass his seamstress sister, Olga, as part of a brutal cover-up. So begins MacArthur fellow Hemon's third and most galvanizing work of fiction. The basic story of Lazarus' murder is true, and Hemon tells it with vigor and outrage, covertly paralleling early-twentieth-century anti-Semitic hysteria over anarchists with early-twenty-first-century stereotyping of Islamic terrorists. Powerful stuff, and yet… charged with fury and empathy, Hemon's sentences seethe and hiss, their dangerous beauty matched by Velibor Bozovic's eloquent black-and-white photographs, creating an excoriating novel of rare moral clarity. -- Booklist starred review 

Next Level Leadership: Leveraging 21st Century Lessons in Diversity"  (Great Lakes Rooms, U.C.)
Ramsey Jay, Jr.
Featured Speaker
Ramsey Jay, Jr. is an executive at Ares Management, a global alternative investment management firm specializing in managing assets in both the private equity and leveraged finance markets. At Ares Ramsey is responsible for North American institutional business development. He is an adviser to business leaders and author of Weekly Life Lessons In Leadership. He motivates people to transform their dreams into entrepreneurial realities. He was a delegate for the Turkish Cultural Foundation's tour of Istanbul.

Ramsey Jay, Jr.: Reception (Charcoal Room)
After the presentation, please join Ramsey Jay, Jr., in the Charcoal Room for a conversation, cookies, lemonade, tea, and coffee.

Improving Communications Between Administrators, Professors, and Multicultural Students (Greal Lakes Rooms, U.C.)
Shirley Brozzo of the Multicultural Education Resource Center discusses ways to improve communication between administrators, professors, and multicultural students.

Surviving Within a Predominately Straight, White Higher Education Institution (Great Lakes Rooms, U.C.)
Star Murray will facilitate a student panel. The discussion will feature students of color and their experiences in a predominantly straight, white institution of higher education.

My Life at 11,000 feet -- Why and How to Go Abroad  (Great Lakes Rooms, U.C.)
Laura Judge discusses how, why, and where to experience NMU's study abroad opportunities.

How Different Religions View the Environment (Mead)
Interfaith Forum panel discussants include: Jacob Silver, Mohey Mowafy, Rod Clarken, and others

Student Teachers and their Students’ Needs (Mead)
Sixty-five student teachers described ways in which they sought to meet their students’ needs. Several dominant themes emerged. Derek Anderson, Joe Lubig, and Markisha Smith discuss implications for preparation of teachers for an increasingly diverse student population.

Turning Away from Hate  (Great Lakes Rooms, U.C.)
Tom "T.J." Leyden
Featured speaker
Tom "T.J." Leyden is a former neo-Nazi white supremacist activist who turned his back on the white power movement. TJ has worked with the Task Force Against Hate at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Clinton White House Conference on Hate, and California "Governor's Advisory Panel on Hate Groups." He has consulted for television, movie and documentaries and trained members of the Pentagon, FBI, military, and law enforcement. TJ co-authored "Skinhead Confessions."

United in Film

All films in Mead Auditorium in West Science

Making Local Documentaries
Join John Pepin, the writer-producer-director of "Anatomy ‘59" and "The Enemy in Our Midst," as he provides a workshop promoting the development of local films about historical topics of the Upper Peninsula. Mr. Pepin will encourage participants to produce local documentaries, while also discussing research methods, script development, and other aspects of production.

Stander
Dr. Jonathan Allen facilitates a film about a real-life white South African policeman who was also a bank robber. The film scenes are realistic and based on archival footage of the 1976 riots.

Bullied
ALLIES will facilitate a film on the experiences of  gay youth in a Minnesota high school and the lessons for K-12 educators.

Crash
Facilitated by Barb Coleman and Dr. Maggy Moore. The film opens with a black man, Detective Graham Waters, who speaks dazedly about the nature of Los Angeles and the need for people to crash into each other….

Globalized Soul
Globalized Soul - Featured Film - recently had its World Premiere at the World Peace Festival in Berlin. The film will be the Featured Film for the 2011 UN International Day of Peace. NMU's UNITED 2011 is Michigan's Premiere of Globalized Soul. Co-producer Cynthia Lukas - featured speaker - Leads a discussion after the film. Reception follows.

United in Food

Eating Well" (Great Lakes Rooms, U.C.)
Reception to follow (CR)
Chef Michelle Bommarito
Featured Speaker
Chef Bommarito is the 2006 gold medal winner on Food Network cooking competition. She served as personal chef to Michael Jordan and was named a Top 20 wedding cake designer by Bride Magazine. Enjoy Chef Bommarito's tasty cooking demonstration, some multicultural foods, and conversation following her 90-minute presentation.

United in Research and Scholarship

Chinese Roots American Blossoms  (Great Lakes Rooms, U.C.)
Jian Sha presents her research during the summer through experience of living in America and being born and raised in China.

Zamposium! (Erie Room, U.C.)
Alec Lindsay will be joined by his 14 Zambassadors, students who accompanied him to Zambia. They will present research projects on their biological, ecological, and cultural understanding of Zambia.

United in Service

Global collaboration - My Experience with "Rock our World"  (Great Lakes Rooms, U.C.)
Ms. Gaby Eyzaguirre discusses her experience participating on Rock our World, a global collaboration project 7 years running. "Rock our world" involves students from different parts of the world creating music together, learning about cultures, sharing experiences and knowledge and working in project based learning activities.

UNITED IN SUPPORT:  “Military Children ---- Thriving During Good and Challenging Times”
Mrs. Patty Shinseki  (Great Lakes Rooms, U.C.)
Featured Speaker
Mrs. Patty Shinseki is a board member of Joining Forces, a national initiative in support of service members and their families, and the Military Child Education Coalition.  She will speak on her work with military families, Joining Forces, and the Military Child Education Coalition, where she chairs the Living in the New Normal: Helping Children Thrive During Good and Challenging Times initiative. She has devoted herself to volunteer work in the schools and community, American Red Cross, Family Readiness Groups, and the Armed Services YMCA, The Army Distaff Foundation, and Army Emergency Relief.

Service Learning in Honduras  (Great Lakes Rooms, U.C.)
Eileen Smit and Dr. Mary Jane Tremethick discuss their service research and Nursing students' Academic Service Learning experiences in Honduras.