Using the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals to Train Tomorrow's Sustainability Leaders10/26/2022 When: Wednesday, October 26th, 2022 at 12 noon CDT Where: In-person and via livestreaming Speaker: Dr. David Cwiertny In Collaboration with Johnson County UN Association The University of Iowa recently launched a new MS degree program built around the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Sustainability is inherently interdisciplinary. The technical skills necessary for developing a more sustainable society draw from multiple disciplines including the natural and social sciences, engineering and beyond. Technical skills, however, are not sufficient and developing a more sustainable society will require additional skills including communication and cultural competency to translate training outcomes to communities and the public at large. As such, sustainability focused training programs cannot thrive within the traditional structure of academic silos. Rather, preparing the next generation of sustainability professionals requires a bold, interdisciplinary training approach that is not just technically rigorous, but also builds expertise in community engagement, cultural awareness, and communication with diverse stakeholders. The SDGs provide such a framework upon which to train tomorrow's sustainability leaders. This presentation will introduce the SDG MS program at the University of Iowa and talk more broadly about the skills and competencies needed to turn the SDGs into reality.  Dr. Cwiertny is the William D. Ashton Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Iowa, as well as the Director, Center for Health Effects of Environmental Contamination; Director, Environmental Policy Research Program, Public Policy Center;
Researcher, Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Institute; Researcher, Environmental Health Sciences Research Center; and Faculty Research Engineer, IIHR--Hydroscience & Engineering. His special fields of knowledge include environmental chemistry, and waste and wastewater treatment and reuse. His research areas include Materials-based treatment strategies for water and wastewater, and Chemical transformation pathways for emerging contaminant classes in a natural aquatic systems. He has a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from Johns Hopkins University (2006), and a B.S.E. degree in Environmental Engineering Science from the University of California, Berkeley (2000).
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When: Wednesday, October 19th, 2022 @ 12 noon CDT Where: Online via Zoom Speaker: Dr. Clayton Thyne Coups d’état are dramatic events that can have major and lasting implications for states. Negative effects include destroying democracies, spurring repression, and inviting warfare. Coups may also have more positive effects like ending civil wars and providing opportunity for democratic governance to emerge. The recent spike in coups aligns with a burgeoning scholarly interest in these events. The purpose of this talk is twofold. First, the nature of coups will be discussed along with the scholarly literature that examines causes and consequences of coups. Second, original research will be presented that explores an overlooked aspect of coups: education. While the bulk of coup research focuses on elite actors, the original research presented in this talk will focus on one important aspect of the civilian population, expecting that coups will be unlikely in highly education populations. As such, this talk will be interesting to a wide variety of audiences, including students who have rarely thought about coups and scholars who study coups as a primary research interest.  Clayton Thyne is a Professor in the Political Science department at the University of Kentucky. He currently serves as the Department Chair, having previously held positions as Director of Graduate Studies and as the co-founder and Director of the Peace Studies certificate program. Dr. Thyne’s research currently focuses on domestic conflict/instability, coups d'état, regime types and democratization, and international education policy. His most recent work focuses on coups d'état, civil war onset, and civil war duration. His book, How International Relations Affect Civil Conflict: Cheap Signals, Costly Consequences, was published by Lexington Books in 2009. Other published work can be found in The Journal of Politics, British Journal of Political Science, Social Science Quarterly, International Studies Quarterly, The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Comparative Political Studies, The Journal of Peace Research, Foreign Policy Analysis, and Conflict Management and Peace Science. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa (2007); M.A., University of Iowa (2004); M.Ed., University of Saint Thomas-Houston (2003); B.A., University of Nebraska-Kearney (2001).
When: Thursday, October 6, 2022 @ 12 noon CDT Where: In-person: MidWestOne Bank 102 S. Clinton St., Iowa City, IA Speaker: Zaza Muchemwa In collaboration with The University of Iowa International Writing Program Zaza Muchemwa, born, raised and making her artistic practice in Zimbabwe, looks at and shares the experiences of living in a country of constant transition, of being in fear and rising despite that fear, of holding onto hope amid despair and, what it means to stay alive in Zimbabwe today. She writes that there is a country in southern Africa which is known for always being in mainstream news for all the things that went wrong with young African nations shortly after gaining independence from colonial regimes. Chances are that one out of the ten times you have switched on a news channel in the past 3 decades you have come across the name Zimbabwe. You may have learned that the country is mineral rich, with a climate favorable to a rich agrarian economy, with a highly literate population and that this country, Zimbabwe, should be thriving. Yet misrule, corruption, poverty, dictatorship, decline, unemployment (the list goes on) have come to be associated with Zimbabwe. Equally you may have been astounded by the resilience of Zimbabweans. Rightly so, even when the country hit rock bottom several times, the citizens mysteriously found ways to bounce back from one catastrophe to another. The Art Scene has grown to, over the years, proffering thought provoking, delightful and visceral music, visual art, theatre, poetry, literature to global consumers. This with little to no support from the government, often within the confines of regulation censoring free expression. Ms. Muchemwa will address these issues during her presentation.  Zaza MUCHEMWA (poet, playwright, arts administrator; Zimbabwe) has had her poetry appear at PEN International and Badilisha Poetry X-change and included in the anthology Zimbabwe Poets for Human Rights. Author of the play The IVth Interrogation, she is also an award-winning theater director and producer. Her journalism appears in Index on Censorship Magazine, Povo Magazine and elsewhere. As a Fall Resident in the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, she participates thanks to a grant from the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the US Department of State.
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