Friday Forum

The Friday Forum provides opportunities for community members to offer public presentations on their scholarly and other interests. The Forum meets on occasional Friday afternoons during the academic year, from 4:15-5:15. Presentations are informal, generally lasting about 45 minutes, and are followed by a question and answer period to end the hour.

All are welcome to attend — students are especially encouraged — and refreshments are provided.

 

Spring 2008 Schedule

5/2: Kari-Shane Davis, "The Little White Pill: Contraception and Its Influence on the 'Un-Hooked' Dating Practices of Today's Young Men and Women," TRC Boardroom, CSB, 4:15

4/25: Emily Esch, TBA, Little Theater (Q346) SJU, 4:15

4/18: John Hasselberg, "The Tao of Lagom: A Middle Way for the Middle Kingdom." Little Theater (Q346) 4:15

China must address its growing income and wealth inequalities, its aging population, its rapidly deteriorating health and social safety supports and the other related consequences of its rapid development and of its thirty years of the one-child policy. Research into issues of ethical accountability, environmental sustainability, and corporate social responsibility (and its evolution into International Corporate Responsibility) clearly distinguish rival systems of organizing the relationships between the state, market and civil society spheres. The corporatist social welfare model of Sweden holds great promise for adoption by and adaptation to China's evolving socio-economic system.
 
At this week’s Friday Forum, Prof. John Hasselberg (Management) discusses these issues. He takes a particularly close look at Sweden. The Swedish "Middle Way" arrangement emerged out of a situation similar to what is happening economically, socially and in the workplaces and families of China today. In its most common denotation, “The Middle Way” was conceived as being in between the chaotic capitalist systems that were mired in unemployment, violence and economic depression—and with emerging fascist movements in many of them—in the 1930’s, and the rigid, planned communist systems that were in ascendency in Russia at the same time.  The system adopted in Sweden reflected an understanding of the need for all stakeholder to both give and take—but not to give or take too much. "Lagom" is the Swedish word for this phenomenon of finding a just and harmonious middle ground. Such a system is necessary for a morally healthy and sustainable civil society, responsible government and a market system that is vibrant, accountable and respectful of human dignity and vulnerability. With occasional modifications, the "Middle Way" continues to serve the Swedish society well to this day. As Sweden was itself arguably the first highly successful export-driven developing economy in the 20th century, it provides a model of economic, social, environmental and cultural sustainability that ought to be most attractive to China as it addresses the challenges embedded in its long term growth and development strategies.

4/11: Kurt Sorensen, TBA, Little Theater, (Q346) SJU, 4:15

4/4:  Parker Wheatley, TBA, TRC Boardroom, CSB, 4:15

3/28: Gregory Schroeder, "Austrian Communities and Their Struggles to Remember the Victims of the Third Reich: Long-term Debates, Books, Arts, Education in the Culture of Remembrance since 1945; Plus Commentary on Wreats and Cigars," Little Theatre (Q346), SJU, 4:15.

3/7: Elizabeth Keenan, "From Bumps in the Road to the Edge of Chaos: The Nature of Change in Adult Lives," TRC Boardroom, CSB, 4:15

2/29: Kelly Kraemer, "Skin In The Game: The Importance of Family-Based Peace Groups in the Anti-War Movement Today," TRC Boardroom, CSB, 4:15

2/15: John Van Rooy, "TBA," Little Theatre (Q346), SJU, 4:15

2/8: Mary Jane Berger, "Why the Book of Psalms?" TRC Boardroom, CSB, 4:15

2/1: Sophia Gossman and Molly Roske, "Environmental student internships abroad: tales from the Southern Hemisphere," Little Theatre (Q346), SJU, 4:15

 

                                                     

 

 

 

 

Fall 2007 Schedule

-please note the location of each session as room/campus will vary-

9/21: Ronald Pagnucco  "A Case Study in Global Solidarity: the St. Cloud-Homa Bay Partnership,"                      TRC Boardroom, CSB

10/5: Carrie Hoover "Promoting Self Management in Heart Failure Patients through Education and Telemonitoring," TRC Boardroom, CSB

10/19: Fr. Jerome Tupa, Art Center Theater

10/26: Jean Keller "Sara Rudick and Transracial Adoptive Maternal Practice," Gorecki 120 AB, CSB

11/2: John Olson, "Slaves, Mules and Cotton: Gang Labor on Antebellum Southern Plantations", Little Theater Quad 346, SJU

11/9: Charles Wright "Gut Reactions & Moral Judgment: New Contributions from Moral Psychological and Neuroscience," TRC Boardroom, CSB

11/16: Joal Reeves, "Chicago and Lake Street Reconstruction," CSB

11/30: Melissa Hund, Little Theater Quad 345, SJU

12/7: Shane Miller " The War for Christmas: On the Risks of Sacralising the Secular," SJU

12/14: Aubrey Immelman "The Psychological Profiles of the Top-Tier Republican and Democratic Candidates for President," CSB