Janice Weis, Associate Dean and Director of the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Program, said the conference was groundbreaking given its comprehensive scope.

“The conference moved beyond a discussion of climate change and its causes and tackled the issue of how alternative or renewable energy sources might be used to ‘green the grid,’” Weis said. “The conference looked at the economic, legal, and technical issues involved in employing a variety of different energy sources and, in doing so, allowed us to gain an appreciation for the very complex issues involved in climate change.”

Speakers addressed a wide spectrum of energy sources including ocean wave, nuclear, coal, solar, and wind, as well as the federal and state regulatory landscape that contributes to or impedes renewable energy development.

“It was clear that the speakers have been spending time in their positions giving great thought as to how all sectors—academic, private, government, and non-profit—might contribute to a better understanding of how to address climate change.”

In this video, conference participants share their motives for attending and the rolls they each play toward Greening the Grid.

Education Professor Zaher Wahab

In the most recent blog post, Wahab describes the beginning of 1338, Afghanistan’s new year:

“There was a sharp increase in people calling in radio stations broadcasting various messages to, for and about missing/disappeared loved ones. For the vast majority of the ravaged nation, this was just another day—a real struggle to feed, house, warm, clothe and/or protect themselves and their families.”

Continue to read this post or explore other posts at “Dispatches from Afghanistan.”

This symposium is one of four organized by undergraduate students at Lewis & Clark annually addressing a cross-section of social and political issues. International Affairs Symposium 2009 co-chair Brad Elkins ‘09  discusses the symposium theme and topics.

Why did you choose war as a theme for this year’s symposium?

My co-chair Elspeth Cordua and I agreed that previous symposia had fairly strong humanitarian/soft power foci–a notably popular subject amongst Lewis & Clark students and community members.  Being the good International Relations students that we are, we thought it was important that the community be exposed to discussions that were perhaps outside their immediate interests that could perhaps spark tension and debate–in  a word, conflict.  Thus, we decided that we wanted this year’s symposium to focus on “hard power” issues such as security and power.

As the committee continued to research the topic, we found our group interests’ coagulating around the idea of “modern warfare” and what wars will look like and how they will be fought in the years to come.

Why do you feel that international conflict is an especially salient subject right now?

We are currently in the midst of a real sea change in how we as a society look at and fight wars.  There are those who claim that Great Power wars, as we knew them in the 20th century, are outdated and that the concept of a conventional standing military force is no longer necessary in our world, while there are others who point to conflicts such as those in Iraq or Afghanistan and see these asymmetric conflicts as only slight deviations from the standard model of engagement.

Regardless of how one views the current state of world conflict, most will agree that war is an inevitable part of human nature, and thus is an important area of study at any period of time.

Who do you think should attend?

This year’s symposium is an excellent opportunity for all members of the Lewis & Clark and Portland communities to learn from those with first-hand experiences about the future of warfare.  Given this campus and community’s proclivity towards topics on a more humanitarian end of the spectrum, this is a fantastic opportunity for those who know little or who have simply not been exposed to such a topic to learn a great deal about a subject that is unfortunately pushed to the wayside on this campus.

The symposium sessions however, are not all just about strategy, guns, and ammo, but instead take on various aspects of modern warfare that should appeal to a wide range of audiences.

The symposium focuses on the dynamics of modern conflict, including questions about the privatization of security forces, the notion of preemptive war, and the efficacy of embedded journalists. What do you hope those in attendance will gain from this expansive view of contemporary conflict?

I think that this sort of topic is often overlooked on this campus, and that students and community members here will gain a great deal of insight into the various facets of warfare; fascinating topics that often conceived as too traditional or too “realist” for our campus.

Watch an interview on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart featuring symposium speaker Thomas Ricks, military correspondent for the Washington Post and author of The Gamble:General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008. Ricks will speak along with journalist Phillip Knightley on Tuesday, April 7 at 7 p.m. in a session titled Black and White and Read All Over: Embedding Journalists with Modern Warriors.

Given what you’ve learned as an International Affairs major, what do you think will be the main source of international conflict during your lifetime?

While I am the first to admit that my just budding knowledge of international relations prevents me from making predictions of any worthy merit, from what I’ve learned and seen I think that wars and international conflict will continue to exist as they have throughout history, and that while we may consider our societies “advanced” or “modern”, you cannot escape human nature.  There will always be those who are willing to undertake a war of conquest. Today we may redefine it as a fight to protect or gain resources. And there will always be those who fight for ideas, political or religious. While the ways and means of fighting these wars are sure to change, there is no escaping that conflict is an inevitable part of who we are.  While I know I cannot predict where the next hot spot for conflict will be, I can say with some degree of certainty that we are by no means past the point of engaged conflict, and there is sure to be many wars throughout my lifetime.

Early this year, he worked with Kabul Education University to create Afghanistan’s first master’s degree program for teacher education faculty. The first cohort is made up of eleven men and eleven women, all of whom left teaching positions in teacher-training colleges from around the country to earn this unique master’s degree.

Click to view photographs

“Four in five Afghan school teachers and half of university instructors are under-qualified—many are illiterate,” Wahab said. “This program was developed to introduce them to new ways and theories of teaching and learning.”

Like the rest of Afghanistan’s capital city, Wahab said, the university has no regular running water. The city, with a population of 3.5 million people, has no electricity, no garbage collection, and no sewer system. The streets are lined with damaged buildings and garbage. Concrete blast barriers surround every important building such as the Kabul airport, museums, NGO offices, hotels, and government buildings. Military waste, such as exploded trucks and planes, covers the country. It is unsafe to travel with out bodyguards and armed vehicles, Wahab said.

“This is the first master’s degree program in decades in this country,” he said. “Education may save this savaged country; it is hoping against hope—but you have to believe it will make a difference.”

This photo slideshow features images Wahab captured during a recent stay in Afghanistan. He plans to return to Afghanistan in February 2009 to continue teaching in the master’s degree program and continue his work with the Afghan Ministry of Higher Education.

In December, Wahab will share stories about the war in Afghanistan as part of a brown-bag lunch speakers series at Lewis & Clark. His session takes place on Wednesday, December 16 on the graduate school campus.

Kroger has taught at Lewis & Clark Law School since 2002. He has won the Leo Levenson Award for Teaching three times during his tenure at the law school, a unique honor bestowed on one faculty member each year by the graduating class.

“John came to Lewis & Clark Law School with a long, distinguished resume as a top-notch federal prosecutor,” Law School Dean Robert Klonoff said. “But even outside of the courtroom, he has proven himself to be a stellar leader. We are fortunate to have had his legal expertise shared so enthusiastically and diligently with our students. We hope that John will be able to remain involved in some capacity in the life of the law school after assuming his position.”

Before joining the faculty, Kroger was a federal prosecutor. Kroger successfully prosecuted over 200 federal criminal cases involving the mafia, public corruption, white- collar crime and narcotics trafficking. Kroger also argued frequently before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. In 1999, Kroger received the Director’s Award from Attorney General Janet Reno for convicting two mafia captains of multiple murders. In 2001, Kroger worked on the emergency response to the 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. From 2002 to 2003, Kroger served as a prosecutor on the U.S. Justice Department’s Enron Task Force.

Kroger has also worked as an economic and domestic policy adviser to a number of political leaders. He was Deputy Policy Director of Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, a legislative assistant to Speaker of the House Thomas Foley and to Congressman (now senator) Chuck Schumer, and a senior policy analyst at the U.S. Treasury Department. Kroger served in the United States Marine Corps for three years prior to college. He clerked for the Honorable Judge Anthony Scirica, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

Kroger is the author of Convictions: A Prosecutor’s Battles Against Mafia Killers, Drug Kingpins, and Enron Thieves  which details the inner workings of his life as a federal prosecutor. He received a B.A. and M.A. from Yale University and a J.D. from Harvard.

Read more about Kroger’s career in the Lewis & Clark Chronicle: Kroger v. Crime.

At the end of October, Young had gathered more than 750 signatures, putting Lewis & Clark in the top five among colleges with the highest percentage of student participation.

Why did you take up this project ?

I took up this project for a few reasons. I saw it as the perfect opportunity to merge the elections with the over-arching environmental movement. Young voters have such an opportunity to change the direction this election is going, and I was looking for a way to let my peers know that we have power in numbers that no other generation has. Also, the Power Vote Campaign stands on a platform of morals and ideals that correlate to what I believe in. I strongly believe that the only solution to the economic crisis that we face in America, and the climate crisis our planet faces, is through a new “green” economy and training in green jobs.

Why do you think Lewis & Clark students have been so responsive to PowerVote.org?

I think that students at LC have a strong urge to be engaged and voice their opinions and Power Vote is the perfect way for us to get involved. Also, LC is a progressive school filled with intelligent students who are incredibly politically conscious. Generally, LC students are liberal, highly aware of the environmental movement, and concerned about the direction our country is headed. As a community, I believe we know there needs to be a change, and we are ready to tell politicians what we want changed.

What do you hope to see from the next president and Congress in terms of policy reform, actions?

Washington needs to seriously reconsider three  aspects of policy and the American society: transportation, food, and architecture. We need to look critically at where we are getting our food from and how we are growing food; the technology we are using to transport ourselves; and the sort of heating and electricity we are using in our buildings and homes. All these things need to become clean, renewable, and sustainable.

In the next president, I hope to see priority put on solving our economic crisis using new green jobs and a new system of educating people about their environmental impact. I want to see money invested in creating new technology that harnesses our renewable resources that are plentiful and non-polluting. We need to get out of this “bridge fuel” mind set. Alternative fossil fuels are not the answer. Specifically, I want investment in educating people on new technology and resources being put into training people to create and install these new technologies. I also want to see district-wide localization planning put into action. We must customize energy resources to the area a community is located and do what makes sense economically for that specific community. I believe that real reform is needed, and if America doesn’t become an example for the rest of the world, then the planet Earth we are accustomed to will be gone.

This symposium is one of four organized by undergraduate students at Lewis & Clark annually addressing a cross-section of social and political issues. The 2008 Multicultural Symposium is chaired by students Myriah Heddens ‘09, Andrew Riley ’10, and Maile Speakman ’10 and directed by Kimberly Brodkin, visiting professor of humanities.  Here, the student organizers address their personal and academic interests in the politics of migration.

What is the distinction between migration and immigration?

Maile:  The difference between migration and immigration in my mind is the connotation of the word “immigration” in our society. When politicians or the media discuss immigration they usually are referring to Mexican migration to the United States. I believe that the word has become highly politicized and does not reflect the multiple immigration experiences that people from all over the world have who have come to live in the United States. Migration, on the other hand, is a more general term that has not been used in political rhetoric and can be used to represent a variety of experiences without a particular connotation.

Myriah: Although I am not sure there is much of a technical difference between migration and immigration, immigration is a heavily loaded term.  I think that popular American culture and media have stigmatized the term immigration and immigrant, associating immigration and immigrants with challenging—generally in a negative way—what I see as an ethno-centric and patriarchal construction of the United States and what it means to be an American.  I see the next major civil rights struggle in this country occurring between Americans who possess deep nativist sentiment and immigrants.

Migration will likely conjure up the politics of the U.S./Mexico border and immigration. Do you hope people will take something more or different away after attending the symposium?

Andrew: I really do. My research has focused primarily on Hmong migration to the United States as refugees from South East Asia. There is such a dearth of discussion of South Eeast Asian migration following the Vietnam War, post-1989 migration from former Soviet bloc countries; I am hoping that the symposium shows students the diversity in migrating populations.

Maile: Definitely. Currently my friend Brenda Salas Neves and I are working on a “Migration to Oregon” panel and the first speaker we approached for the panel was Kayse Jama who is a Somalian migrant and the executive director of the Center for Intercultural Organizing. I hope that when people hear stories from people like Kayse they will remember that migration to the United States comes from a multitude of places.

Myriah: We have dedicated a lot of energy to ensuring that this symposium is more than a dialogue about U.S-Mexico border relations.  While Mexican migration certainly receives the bulk of the media’s attention and political criticism, migration to and within the United States is much more complex and diverse.  We have gathered panelists and keynote speakers who will speak about migration more generally and theoretically, as well as integrate discussions on migration from West Africa, South East Asia, Central America, Europe and the Middle East.

What speaker or panel session are you particularly looking forward to?

Andrew: Kao Kalia Yang. She is a Hmong author who has written about her family’s experience living in the jungles of Laos and then fleeing Pathet Lao persecution, first by going to refugee camps in Thailand and later resettling in the United States. Her book, The Latehomecomer, is incredible.

Myriah: We will hold a panel on family and immigration and I am really looking forward to hearing Professor Juliet Stumpf from the law school speak about the convergence of criminal and immigration law, Immigration Control and Enforcement (ICE) raids, and the impacts on immigrant families here in Portland.  Oregon is a large immigrant-receiving state and we have worked hard on making at least two panels that will talk about migration more locally.

Have you taken a class (or done coursework) that you’ve found useful in planning the symposium?

Andrew: Absolutely. For my qualitative research methods course in the Sociology/Anthropolgy department, I began the study I am currently working on, looking at cultural identity in refugee migration, concentrating on the Hmong. I have sort of continued the theme in different ways throughout other Sociology/Anthropology courses.

Maile: Yes. I took a class taught by Elliott Young called U.S.-Mexico Borderlands and through that class had the chance to go on an alternative spring break trip to Oaxaca to study migration routes from Oaxaca to Oregon. I continued this work with Elliott this summer as his research assistant and I was able to assist in organizing a conference called the Tepoztlán Institute for the Transnational History of the Americas in Mexico. Seeing how a professional conference was organized around themes of transnationalism and migration really helped me get an idea of how to best organize our symposium this year.

Learn more about the 5th Annual Multicultural Symposium and keynote speakers.

National Coming Out events are designed to promote public awareness of issues that affect people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and questioning (LGBTQ).  Events have traditionally been aimed at the LGBTQ community, but Adams points out that those who identify as straight have an important role to play as advocates for equality.

Adams pointed out that polls show the current generation of high school and college aged Americans is more supportive of equality than any generation ever—from hospital visitation rights for same-sex couples to workplace fairness.

“Achieving full equality will take action and support from non-gay allies,” said Adams, the first openly gay candidate to be elected mayor of a major U.S. city. “Like LGBTQ people, allies will find that coming out is not a one-time event, but rather a lifelong journey.”

The mayor-elect’s talk is part of a week-long series of National Coming Out events being organized by the Lewis & Clark student organization United Sexualities. The organization’s leaders say having Adams participate in these events reinforces the significance of this national celebration and sends a strong message that the LGBTQ community has been eager to make clear—discrimination and inequality affects all citizens.

Whitney Ellis, a United Sexualities leader and senior majoring in international affairs, said that while Portland and Lewis & Clark are widely seen as inclusive and supportive of diversity, there is more work to be done to create an equitable society.

“We hope that all staff, faculty, and students at Lewis & Clark, and the wider Portland community, will see National Coming Out events as a time to come together to explore how these issues affect all of us,” Ellis said.

Adams will speak on October 7 at 7 p.m. in Agnes Flanagan Chapel. The event is free and open to the public. Adams’ address, Gay and Straight Coming Out Together, is co-sponsored by the Gender Studies Department and United Sexualities and supported by the Office of the President and Office of the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

“They’ve got an operation here that looks like the old grass roots, the Eugene McCarthy and Bobby Kennedy campaigns of 1968: Go down to headquarters in Portland and you’ll see 40 or 50 people under 25,” Eisinger said.

Read more about Callahan’s and Eisinger’s thoughts on youth involvement heading into the state’s primary on May 20.

Listen to a conversation with Perez and learn about how he is already making a difference in Portland’s Latino community.