Dr. Scott Tinker

Friday, January 4 - Premier of the Film “Switch.”

Saturday, January 5 - What Does the Future of Energy Really Hold?

Dr. Tinker’s passion is building bridges between academia, industry and government and towards that end he has given nearly 500 invited and keynote lectures, visited nearly 50 countries.
Dr. Tinker explores the world’s leading energy sites, from coal to solar, and oil to biofuels. Most recently he produced and is featured in the acclaimed documentary film on global energy, SWITCH.

Switch is the first truly balanced energy film, embraced and supported by people all along the energy spectrum – fossil and renewable, academic and environmental. www.switchenergyproject.com

Dr. Douglas J. Arent

Thursday, April 11  - Global Environmental Change: Certainties and Uncertainties.

Dr. Arent specializes in strategic planning and financial analysis competencies, clean energy technologies and energy and water issues, and international and governmental policies. Dr. Doug Arent is Executive Director, of The Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis (JISEA) which is operated by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, on behalf of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The NREL is the U.S. Department of Energy’s primary national laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development. In addition to his JISEA responsibilities, he is an author and expert reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Renewable Energy and a member of the U.S. Government Review Panel for the IPCC Reports on Climate change. He is also a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Kell Kearns & Cynthia Lukas

Friday, June 14 - Globalized Soul: Stories from a Tipping Point to a New World.

Saturday, June 15 - Rumi Returning: A Beautiful Interfaith Film.

Film makers Kell Kearns and Cynthia Lukas are the producers of many documentaries that bear witness to the momentous changes ongoing in the life on earth in our time. Their latest film, The Hero’s Journey of Mahatma Gandi is set for release in early 2014.

Kell Kearns has this to say about the advocacy films he and Lukas have made. “Its truth and a mystery. When we abandon the arrogant self and walk a selfless path that spreads compassion in the world, miracles happen. Doors open where we did not know there were doors. We succeed where our self-aggrandizing baby-being fails.”

A discussion with the internationally renowned filmmakers follows both films. 

Deirdre Maltby

Thursday, September 12 - After a Near-Death Experience: Coming Back to a Life Forever Changed.

Maltby says of herself, “I was a 56-year-old woman who had an active life, self-run business and felt pretty secure in the world I’d created. Though not religious in any strong way, I had during my younger days been on spiritual quests of all kinds. Yet having felt no strong answers or return communication from anything out there so to speak, I put my spiritual self on the back burner of my life and soul . . . All of which would change in the blink of any eye in the midst of one very normal and ordinary day.”

The questions of what happens to us after we die are intriguing, terrifying, and to some comforting, but most of all the reality of our life after death is a mystery. The ideas of this realm are as varied as there are beliefs, both religious and non- religious. None of us can say with any certainty what the after-life will be like, or if there is one. The only people who can speak with any real authority are those who have had a near death experience. Such a person is Dierdre Maltby. Says Ms. Maltby, “There is probably not a human alive who does not question or has not wondered what lies beyond the other side of life’s veil and these earthly shells we inhabit; what being human is truly all about. In November of 2008 a life was changed forever on the other side of that veil . . . mine.”

The messages and lessons that Maltby learned both during and after her experiences totally rewrote her internal direction, what she referred to as “the essence of me.” She feels that these lessons were given to her in love and were meant to be shared. She now passes along these lessons to others with the same love in hopes that they will recognize a bit more about who they truly are and the dynamic spirit that connects each and every one of us. She states, “One does not need to have a near death experience to go where I did; it is available to all when hearts open to what is out there waiting.” 

2012

Jock Bartley

Thursday, March 15 - Accessing Childlike Creativity: Find Your Natural Spontaneous Connection With Your Muse.

Friday, March 16 - Songwriting: Writing From the Heart and Your Right Brain.

Jock Bartley is a guitarist, singer-songwriter, record producer & artist. Bartley and the band Firefall have been involved with a number of wonderful social causes that include: child abuse and children’s rights issues, domestic violence, Make-A-Wish, Special Olympics, Denver Firefighter’s Burn Victims Camps and many environmental issues.

The two projects that have made the most difference are, first, Bartley’s work on Suicide Prevention. His song Call On Me propelled him into becoming a national spokesperson for Suicide Prevention between 1998–2002. The song was aimed especially at young people at risk between the ages of 15–25. That song in a small way helped to establish the very first national help line.

Secondly, Jock Bartley’s 2008 song Walk More Softly is about taking better care of each other and our fragile planet. “The song is an amazing opportunity to connect with young people through music and the arts,” Bartley says, “and challenge them to think about walking more softly on this planet . . . and to be more friendly, helpful and compassionate with people.”  

Paul K. Chappell

Thursday, May 31 - Why Peace is Possible and How We Can Achieve It.
    
Friday, June 1 - Peace Leadership.

Paul Chappell attended The United States Military Academy at West Point, graduating in 2002. He then served seven years in the United States Army, rising to rank of captain, which took him on a tour of Baghdad. Contrary to how it might appear, his education and his war experience taught him that peace is not only possible, but crucial, to human survival.

Paul arrived at the conclusion that we need to wage peace, not war; hat living peacefully with people who have different beliefs is possible; and further, if we as a nation donʼt learn and practice how to live peacefully, we will become extinct. There is ample evidence to illustrate he knows the topic of peace. He is the author of Will War Ever End?: A Soldierʼs Vision of Peace for the 21st Century; The End of War: How Waging Peace Can Save Humanity, Our Planet, and Our Future; and Peaceful Revolution: How We Can Create the Future Needed for Humanityʼs Survival. He is currently at work on his fourth book, The Art of Waging Peace: A Strategic Approach to Improving Our Lives and the World. Paul also speaks throughout the country to colleges, high schools, veterans groups, churches and activist organizations on these topics. Some of his interaction with audiences is available on his website, http://paulkchappell.com

Dr. Mark Zoback

Thursday, September 13 - Producing Natural Gas From Shale: Opportunities and Challenges of a Major New Energy Source.

Dr. Zoback is the Benjamin M. Page Professor of Geophysics and chair of the Department of Geophysics at Stanford University, where he received masterʼs and PhD degrees in geophysics. He has taught at Stanford since 1984. His research is on in situ stress, fault mechanics, and reservoir geomechanics, and he has authored or coauthored 300 technical papers on these topics. He was one of the principal investigators of the San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth (SAFOD) project, in which a scientific research well was successfully drilled through the San Andreas Fault at seismogenic depth.

Dr. Mark Zoback believes natural gas represents the perfect bridge fuel toward achieving a less carbon-dependent economy. The dilemma, however, is to fully realize the benefits of gas while producing it safely and with minimal environmental impact. Dr. Zoback believes these concerns and challenges have been answered by the Secretary of Energyʼs committee on which Dr. Zoback served. The recently produced report on shale gas development and environmental protection concludes it is possible to produce natural gas safely and with minimal environmental traces.

Dr. Mary Lou Zoback

Friday, September 14 - Reducing Risk and Increasing Resilience in Highly Urbanized Centers.

Mary Lou Zoback, an American geophysicist who led the World Stress Map Project of the International Lithosphere Program from 1986 to 1992. The project included more than 40 scientists from over 30 countries. The objective was to compile and interpret geologic and geophysical data on the present day tectonic stress field. 

Dr. Mary Lou Zoback is currently Vice-president of Earthquake Risk Applications with Risk Management Solutions in Newark, California, the world’s leading catastrophe modeling firm. Her responsibilities include leading initiatives on the quantification for expanding the role of earthquake insurance, disaster management and risk reduction world-wide. She is also working to develop high-quality source and earthquake risk models for new regions of the world. 

2011

Dr. Michael Ward

Friday, March 18 - Jack Never Ceased to be Secretive: C.S. Lewis's Love of Mystery.

Saturday, March 18 - Spiritual Symbols of Permanent Value: C.S. Lewis's Love of the Seven Heavens.

Dr. Michael Ward is one of the foremost C.S. Lewis scholars in the world today! Dr. Ward is an Associate Member of the Theology Faculty and Chaplain of St. Peter's College at the University of Oxford. Dr. Ward authored The Narnia Code, is co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to C.S. Lewis, and Associate Editor of the online poetry service, Davey's Daily Poetry. Dr. Ward is a guest lecturer at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C., the Royal Observatory in England and the John Jay Institute in Colorado. An Anglican clergyman, he served as Chaplain of Peterhouse in the University of Cambridge from 2004 to 2007. Between 1996 and 1999 he was Warden of The Kilns, Lewis's Oxford home. He studied English at Oxford, Theology at Cambridge, and has a PhD from St Andrews. Finally, Dr. Ward made an appearance in the James Bond movie, The World is Not Enough.

In Friday’s lecture Dr. Ward will discuss the mysterious nature of C.S. Lewis. JRR Tolkien described Lewis as "unfathomable" and biographers write that Lewis “never ceased to be secretive.” In this lecture, Ward explains why Lewis was so secretive and how his interest in hiddenness can be seen in his approach to stories and his understanding of theology.

On Saturday, Dr. Ward will talk about C.S. Lewis's expertise in the literature of the Middle Ages and his particular interest in the medieval view of the cosmos and why the seven heavens of that old astronomy remain as “spiritual symbols of permanent value.”

In this lecture, Ward discusses why Lewis valued this ancient view of the heavens so highly and how his interest in the seven heavens informed his academic works, his poetry, his Ransom Trilogy, and, above all, the seven Chronicles of Narnia.  for more information visit http://www.planetnarnia.com/michael-ward

Rev. Michael Dowd

Thursday, August 11 - Evolutionize Your Life: How a meaningful, Science-Based View of Human Nature and the Trajectory of Big History Can Help Each of Us.

Michael Dowd the author of "Thank God for Evolution: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World," which has been endorsed by 6 Nobel laureates and other science luminaries, including noted skeptics and atheists, and by religious leaders across the spectrum. He and his wife, Connie Barlow, an acclaimed science writer, have traveled North America non-stop since 2002, and have addressed more than a thousand religious and secular audiences. They show how the science-based epic of physical, biological, and cultural evolution (our common creation story) can be interpreted in ways that inspire people to cooperate across religious and political differences in service of a just and thriving future for all. They also show how an understanding of human nature given by evolutionary psychology and neurobiology can help each of us live with greater integrity and passion for life.

In Thursday’s lecture “Evolutionize Your Life” Dowd will explore how a meaningful, science-based view of human nature and the trajectory of big history can A) help each of us experience greater joy and fulfillment in life, and B) offers a realistically hopeful and inspiring vision for humanity and the larger body of life. In his acclaimed 2008 book, Thank God for Evolution, Michael Dowd proposes two key distinctions that he maintains are crucial for resolving the wrenching struggle between science and religion. In this beautiful and informative digital slide talk, Dowd will demonstrate why these distinctions matter and thus why Nobel Prize-winning scientists have joined dozens of religious leaders — from Catholics and Quakers to Baptists and Buddhists — in endorsing his book. This program also highlights inspiring long-term and short-term trends in biological and cultural evolution that can help us fulfill the Great Work of our time: co-creating a just and thriving future for our planet, ourselves, and for as many other species as possible.

Dr. Paul Woodruff

Thursday, September 22 - Renewing Reverence: Reverence Virtues and How We Can Renew it in Our Lives.

Friday, September 23 -  The Ajax Dilemma: Ajax was the ideal fighting man in the Greek army outside Troy - huge, strong, loyal, and dependable. 

Odysseus was the brains of the army - cunning, devious, and a master of powerful speech. Which one of them deserves the top honor in the Greek army? Who deserves the highest rewards from our economy the banker or the builder? Where does justice lie in issues like this?"

Thursday’s lecture Renewing Reverence. Reverence is understood in most traditional cultures, but it is an endangered virtue in our time. Dr. Woodruff will talk about what it is and what we can do to keep renewing it in our lives. Friday’s lecture The Ajax Dilemma. Ajax was the ideal fighting man in the Greek army outside Troy; huge, strong, loyal, and dependable. Odysseus was the brains of the army -- cunning, devious, and a master of powerful speech. Which one of them deserves the top honor in the Greek army? Who deserves the highest rewards from our economy; the banker or the builder? Where does justice lie in issues like this?

Dr. Paul Woodruff is a classicist, professor of philosophy, and dean at the University of Texas at Austin, where he once chaired the department of philosophy and has more recently held the Hayden Head Regents Chair as director of Plan II Honors program, which he resigned in 2006 after 15 years of service. On September 21, 2006, University President William C. Powers, Jr. named Dr. Woodruff the inaugural dean of undergraduate studies. He is best-known for his work on Socrates, Plato, and philosophy of theater. 

2010

Dr. Seth Shostak

Saturday, April 10 - Scientific Search for ET.

Seth Shostak is a Senior Astronomer at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California.  He has an undergraduate degree in physics from Princeton University and a doctorate in astronomy from the California Institute of Technology.  For much of his career, Seth conducted radio astronomy research on galaxies and has published approximately sixty papers in professional journals.  More than a decade, he worked at the Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, in Groningen, The Netherlands, using the Westerbork Radio Synthesis Telescope.  He also founded and ran a company producing computer animation for TV.

Frequently interviewed for radio and TV, Seth has recently been seen and/or heard on Discovery Channel, Learning Channel, History Channel, the BBC, “Nightline,” “The O’Reilly Factor,” “Good Morning America,” “Larry King Live,” “Coast to Coast AM,” NPR, CNN News, and National Geographic Television. He is the host of a one-hour weekly radio program on astrobiology entitled “Are We Alone?”

The scientific hunt for extraterrestrial intelligence is now into its fifth decade, and we still haven't uncovered a confirmed peep from any cosmic company.  Could this mean that finding aliens, even if they exist, is a project for the ages – one that might take centuries or longer?  New
technologies for use in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) suggest that, despite the continued dearth of signals from other societies, there is good reason to expect that success might not be far off – that we might find evidence of sophisticated civilizations within a few decades. What would contact tell us, and what would it mean to us and to our descendants?

Bill & Beth Sagstetter

Thursday, June 17 - Beyond The Mining Camps Speak. 

The Sagstetters have been exploring the backcountry of the American West and Southwest as a researcher, writer and photographer team. They were a correspondent team for the Denver Post for two years. The Sagstetter by-line has appeared on hundreds of magazine articles to date.

They have authored The Mining Camps Speak, Unraveling the Mysteries of the Telluride Blanket, and The Cliff Dwellings Speak. They produced four prime-time documentary films for television. Their film, The Mystery of Huajatolla (Wah-ha-TOY-ah), went on to win an award at the Aspen Arts Film Festival. 

Also featuring, Matt Mikulich and Scott Adams with “Mining Stories and Songs:”  A Short Narration of the history of early mining in Colorado in the time period 1860 -1895, including songs about mining.

Matt Mikulich has developed a show combining his interest in mining and the history of Colorado with his background in the acoustic guitar. This show is entitled "The History of Leadville: Stories and Songs.” 

Scott Adams plays back-up guitar for the performances. Scott is an accomplished finger-style guitarist.  All shows include some narration and a number of songs. Both Scott and Matt are also acoustic guitar builders.

Dr. Kent Ira Groff

Thursday, August 19 - Doubting Believing:  Traces of Grace in the Grit.

Friday, August 20 - Follow Your Passion: Sex, Mysticism, and Vocation.

Dr. Kent Ira Groff, a spiritual companion for journeyers and leaders and a writer in Denver, leads seminars and retreats at campuses and conference centers in the U.S. and abroad.  As founding mentor of Oasis Ministries and former adjunct professor at Lancaster Theological Seminary (Pa.), he has a passion to transform shopworn religious language into lived experience.

Thursday’s lecture will explore how barriers to believing, like religious violence or shopworn God-talk, become bridges to a new level faith.  Groff will look at faith “from below” (rather than doctrines “from above”), showing how bits of grace in the grit of ordinary experience embody the deepest spiritual reality of Christianity and other faiths. 

In Friday’s discussion Dr. Groff will review how you can put together sacred and secular, success and suffering. He will also examine the difference between a job and a vocation. Seekers and leaders, students and teachers, workers and corporate leaders long to find meaning in our work and relationships in each stage of life. Groff will explore how sexuality relates to our deepest desires for spiritual intimacy and vocational generativity. 

In each lecture Groff will draw from his award-winning book What Would I Believe if I Didn’t Believe Anything?: A Handbook for Spiritual Orphans and from Facing East, Praying West with his experience in India and other cultures.

2009

Celinda Reynolds Kaelin

Tuesday, March 17 – Healing Waters, Broken Trails: Indigenous Peoples of the Upper Arkansas Valley.

Celinda is the author of several books, hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles, and has lectured extensively throughout the Pikes Peak region.

Celinda Reynolds Kaelin, is a poet, philosopher, historian and granddaughter of New Mexico pioneer and homesteader, John Allen Reynolds. Celinda is a member of Western Writers of America and Women Writing the West, and has served as president of the Pikes Peak Historical Society for fifteen years. Celinda began writing full time in 1989, after she took an early retirement from the Central Intelligence Agency.

She received her B.A. in Business Administration from the College of Santa Fe, and also has the equivalent of a Masters Degree in Business Administration earned from over 400 hours of post-graduate studies.

Tuesday’s lecture, Celinda will explore the First Nations who inhabited the valleys and summits of the Collegiate Peaks before the coming of the white man. This region of North America was host to its earliest inhabitants, the Clovis People, who hunted the area until about 12,000 years ago. Later arrivals, the Ute Indians, bathed their ponies in the healing mineral waters of the Collegiates, and fought off constant incursions from Plains Indians envious of their “hunters’ paradise.” Celinda, named Sunif Mamuch by the Ute, will share music, legends, and cultural insights on these fascinating people of the Shining Mountains.

Dr. Mal Wakin, Brigadier General (Ret.) 

Friday, July 10 – Principles & Cases in Medical Ethics.
Saturday, July 11 - End-of-Life Issues Including Physician Assisted Death.

Malham M. Wakin is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He has taught at the Air Force Academy since 1959 and served as Professor and Head of the Department of Philosophy, Chairman of the Humanities Division, Assistant Dean, Associate Dean, chair and member of numerous committees.

He served on active duty with the Air Force from 1953 to 1995. He holds a number of military decorations including the Distinguished Service Medal and the Legion of Merit (three). He has authored or edited five books. After retiring in the rank of Brigadier General in 1995, General Wakin served the Air Force Academy for another two years as the Lyon Chair Professor of Professional Ethics.

He holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Southern California, an M.A. in secondary education and school administration from the State University of New York at Albany, and a B.A. in mathematics from the University of Notre Dame. General Wakin was national chairman of the Joint Services Conference on Professional Ethics from 1979 to 1992 and was a member of the Ethics Oversight Committee for the U.S. Olympic Committee for 13 years. He continues to average approximately fifty lectures each year around the world.

In Friday’s lecture, Dr. Wakin will review various cases of medical ethics in cases that he has participated in over the last few years. A panel of local medical practitioners will add their thoughts and comments. Then a question and answer period will be opened up to the audience. 

Saturday’s lecture, will be devoted to end-of-life issues including recent moves to bring physician assisted suicide and physician assisted death to Colorado. Again, a panel of local medical practitioners will add their thoughts and comments. Then a question and answer period will be opened up to the audience.

Dr. Ian Miller

Thursday, March 7 - Deep Time Climate Change and its Relevance to our Understanding of Global Warming.

Dr. Ian Miller from the Denver Museum of Nature & Science will cover how paleontologists and paleobotanists view climate change over the past 100 million years, using lessons from the Earth’s long history to put climate change into a more understandable context.

Miller uses fossil leaves to interpret past climates, fossil ecosystems, and how Western North America, particularly in terms of its mountains and basins, has changed over the last 100 million years. www.dmns.org.

He describes his research goals by saying he is a “paleontologist who uses fossil leaves to interpret past climates, fossil ecosystems, and how western North America, particularly in terms of its mountains and basins, has changed over the last 100 million years. These data help us understand climate change and the evolution of life on earth.”

Dr. Charlotte Kasl

Thursday, May 2 - Feeling Connected Throughout the Life Span: Finding the Balanceof I, You, and Us.

Friday, May 3 - The Heart of Intimacy: Truth, Empathy and Understanding.

Charlotte Kasl began her professional life with an MA in Piano from The University of Michigan, and then earned a PhD in Counseling from Ohio University. She was a Licensed Psychologist in Minnesota for 15 years and now is a practicing Professional Clinical Counselor in Montana. 

Dr. Kasl life’s work for more than 30 years has been to help people identify who they are, what they value, and what they believe and want as steps on the road to ego strength. Her overall theme for both lectures is “Relationships as a spiritual journey.” http://charlottekasl.com

Dr. Peter Hess 

Thursday, August 8 - Prehistoric Pain: Dinosaur Suffering and the Evolutionary Hermeneutic.

Friday, August 9 - From Quarks to Consciousness: Evolving into Moral and Spiritual Understanding.

Peter M. J. Hess, PhD. Serves as Director of Outreach to Religious Communities with the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) in Oakland, California. He helps to promote dialogue at the interface between science and religion, particularly in the areas of evolutionary biology and climate change.

He earned an M.A. from Oxford University and a Ph.D. from the Graduate Theological Union at Berkley, and studies the interaction between science and religion in the modern world (1600-1900). He is the co-author of Catholicism and Science (with Paul L. Allen) and is also writing on the religious and ethical implications of the rapidly approaching end of affordable oil.

Susan R. Eaton

Thursday, October 10 - A Geoscientist in Antarctica: Following in Shackleton’s Footsteps
100 Years Later.

Friday, October 11 - Antarctica: The Nexus of the World's Great Climate Engine.

Susan R. Eaton has 30 years of experience as a Calgary-based geologist and geophysicist, and has had a successful career in the Canadian energy sector. She is listed in the Who’s Who of Canadian Women directory and currently works as an independent geologist and geophysicist consulting with the Canadian, American, and international petroleum and financial sectors on exploration and production. Susan holds degrees in biology, geology, geophysics, and journalism.

In 2010, Susan Eaton participated in the Elysium Visual Epic Expedition to Antarctica and South Georgia. Part of a 57-member team from 18 nations, Eaton and the rest of the team followed Shackleton’s footsteps 100 years later. Their mission was to scout, record, and analyze this pristine wilderness and create a visual library documenting the impacts of climate change on the planet’s last frontier. Antarctica still contains many geological secrets and today geoscientists explore it, not because it is there, but because it might not be there in the future.

Follow Susan R. Eaton as she explores Antarctica from both above and below the water. Learn about the interplay between plate tectonics, solid earth systems, glaciology, climate and life, as Susan continues the century-long geologic tradition of exploration and discovery in Antarctica, the world's final frontier. 

Dr. Kirk Johnson and Dr. Ian Miller

Friday, April 13 - The Discovery of Snowmastodon.

You wouldnʼt think two very well educated scientists could get so excited about old dead leaves, even if some of them are still green after 45,000 years. But Doctors Kirk Johnson and Ian Miller are so enthusiastic about their fields of paleontology and fossils that you would think the green stuff was money.

It isnʼt. Dr. Kirk Johnson, a Yale man, is vice president of research and collections and chief curator at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, and his expertise is fossil plants and geology. “A curator acquires objects and studies them to learn their stories,”

Dr. Johnson says. He studies fossil leaves and measures the age of the rocks in which he finds them to refine geologic time. That is, to reconstruct ancient landscapes, track climate change, and document the evolution and extinction of species and ecosystems.

Dr. Ian Miller, also a Yale man, is department chair of earth sciences and curator of paleontology at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. As a paleontologist his expertise is fossil plants, and he uses fossil leaves to interpret past climates, fossil ecosystems and how western North American, particularly its mountains and basins, has changed over the last 100 million years. This helps us understand climate change and the evolution of life on earth. For instance, did you know that western Washington, British Columbia and Alaska used to be in Mexico? That area was “smeared” north. Thatʼs the sort of revelation one gets from Dr. Millerʼs studies.

The two doctors are integral to understanding the ancient bones found in October, 2010, in the Ziegler Reservoir near Snowmass Village, CO. Within two days of a bulldozer operator unearthing bones, scientists from Denver Museum of Nature & Science were on site. Within two weeks a museum team was excavating what has become one of the most significant discoveries in Colorado history. The excavation has revealed an amazing series of animals. Eight to 10 American mastodons, four Columbian mammoths, a Jeffsonʼs ground sloth, four gigantic bision, two ice age deer, snails, iridescent insects and plant matter fossils and bones have been dug up.

Dr. Marc Bekoff

Friday, July 20 - Wild Justice: The Moral Lives of Animals.

Saturday, July 21 - The Emotional Lives of Animals and Why They Matter: Who Lives, Who Dies and Why.

Marc Bekoff, former Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado at Boulder, is a Fellow of the Animal Behavior Society , past Guggenheim Fellow, was awarded the Exemplar Award from the Animal Behavior Society in 2000 for his contributions to the field of Animal Behavior. He is also an ambassador for Jane Goodall’s Roots and Shoots program and is a member of the Ethics Committee of the Jane Goodall Institute. In 2006, he was named and honorary board member of Rational Animal organization and a patron of the Captive Animal’s Protection Society. Marc is a faculty member of the Humane Society University and since 2010 he was named to the advisory board member of Living With Wolves. In 2005, he was presented with the Bank One Faculty Community Service Award for work with children, senior citizens, and prisoners. He was awarded the St. Francis of Assisi Award in 2009 by the Auckland, New Zealand, SPCA.

Marc’s main areas of research include animal behavior, cognitive ethology (the study of animal minds) and behavioral ecology. He has published more than 200 papers and 22 books on animal behavior. He is working on a number of new books including, Ignoring Nature No More: The Case for Compassionate Conservation and Rewilding Our Hearts will appear in 2013 along with a children’s book.

Wild Justice Dr. Bekoff’s work has been featured on 48 Hours, in Time Magazine, Life Magazine, US New and World Report, The New York Times, New Scientist, and many other programs. Marc has also appeared on CNN, Good Morning America and 20/20.

Dr. Amy Frykholm

Thursday, October 11 - Doing it Right: Sex and Christianity in American Media.

Using her latest book, See Me Naked: Stories of Sexual Exile in American Christianity, and her work as a cultural critic, Amy Frykholm will examine the relationship between religion and sexuality in books, movies, and television; aka, the media culture.  “These stories are messy,” Frykholm says of her latest book, from which she draws her lecture. “These are not fables or compilations. They do not come together neatly in the end with a moral and a clear sense of direction, but through the stories we can begin to make sense of where we come from and where we are going.”

Amy Frykholm is well trained both by her Ph.D. in literature from Duke University. She is associate editor for The Christian Century, where she writes feature stories, identifies contributors, and solicits articles on Christianity, ecumenism, human connection, and contemporary life.

Temple Grandin Ph.D. 

Thursday, June 2 - Autism, Animals, and Visual Thinking.

Friday, June 3 - Improving Animal Welfare: A Practical Approach.

Dr. Temple Grandin, world-famous animal scientist and autism self-advocate, has been included in the 2010 TIME 100, the magazine's annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world!

The list, now in its seventh year, recognizes the activism, innovation, and achievement of the world's most influential individuals. Temple is listed as one of twenty-five "Heroes" of 2010. The author of the article, a professor at Harvard University, writes, "What do neurologists, cattle, and McDonald's have in common? 

They all owe a great deal to one woman . . . Temple Grandin an extraordinary source of inspiration for autistic children, their parents—and all people." As Managing Editor of TIME Magazine, Rick Stengel has said of the list in the past, "The TIME 100 is not a list of the most powerful people in the world, it's not a list of the smartest people in the world; it's a list of the most influential people in the world. They're scientists, they're thinkers, they're philosophers, they're leaders, they're icons, they're artists, they're visionaries.

Dr. Temple Grandin obtained her B.A. at Franklin Pierce College in 1970. In 1975 she earned her M.S. in Animal Science at Arizona State University. Dr. Grandin was awarded her Ph.D. in Animal Science from the University of Illinois in 1989. You can see Temple’s early years in the HBO film Temple Grandin which won 7 Emmy Awards, and earned Claire Danes, who played Temple in the film, a Golden Globe Award.

Dr. Grandin’s book, Animals in Translation was a New York Times best seller and her book Livestock Handling and Transport, which was published in 2007, is now in its third edition. Other popular books authored by Dr. Grandin are Thinking in Pictures, Emergence Labeled Autistic, Animals Make us Human, Improving Animal Welfare: A Practical Approach, The Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships: Decoding Social Mysteries Through the Unique Perspectives of Autism and The Way I See It. 

Connie Barlow

Friday, August 12 -  Evolutionize Your Death and Legacy: How a Range of Scientific Disciplines Offer Opportunities to Rejoice in a Fully Naturalistic Understanding.

Connie's most recent book, The Ghosts of Evolution (Basic Books), was Amazon.com's top-recommended science book for several months in 2001. Her previous books, Green Space, Green Time: The Way of Science, Evolution Extended: Biological Debates on the Meaning of Life, and From Gaia to Selfish Genes: Selected Writings in the Life Sciences, all explore the nexus of science, spirit, and meaning.

Barlow, a "religious naturalist" and Unitarian Universalist, is also a well-known developer of curricula for children’s religious education that highlight our shared evolutionary story. Since 2002, she and her husband (Rev. Michael Dowd) have lived entirely on the road as “America’s evolutionary evangelists”— which is also the title of the couple's weekly podcast. She posts videos on evolutionary themes on YouTube under the name “ghostsofevolution.” 

She is founding member and webmaster of Torreya Gaurdians, an internet community of botanists, naturalists, and others dedicated to ensuring the continuing persistence in the wild of America's most endangered conifer tree: Torreya taxifolia. In the 1990s she contributed articles to Wild Earth magazine toward encouraging others in conservation to develop “deep-time eyes” by way of learning the history of evolutionary change and paleoecological interactions — culminating in her contributions to “Pleistocene Rewilding” advocacy.

In Friday’s lecture: “Evolutionize Your Death and Legacy” Connie will explore how a range of scientific disciplines (from geology to cosmology, from biology to ecology) offer opportunities to rejoice in a fully naturalistic understanding of the creative role that death plays in the world — at all levels of reality, and how this fresh outlook can both energize our lives and help us deeply trust the process of dying. 

Dr. Stephen Scott

Saturday, October 15 - Wonders, Mysteries and Treasures of the Deep Sea Floor.

Steve Scott is the Dr. Norman B. Keevil Professor Emeritus of Ore Genesis Geology, McRae Quantec Emeritus Professor of Geology, past Chair of Geological and Mineral Engineering (now Lassonde Program in Mineral Engineering), past Chair of the Department of Geology and Director of the Scotiabank Marine Geology Research Laboratory.

He studies present-day geological processes on the modern ocean floor and relates these to ancient features that are now on land. A primary, but not exclusive, focus is comparative studies of modern and ancient deposits of base and precious metal sulfides and other hydrothermal products. Being retired, he no longer supervises graduate students but collaborates with postdoctoral fellows and sabbatical visitors.

He and his research teams have worked in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans and on ore deposits of five continents. The scope of his award winning research ranges in scale from regional tectonics to high-resolution electron microscopy and commonly has an emphasis on geochemistry and mineralogy.

A current focus is the role of magmatic fluids in the formation of modern and ancient volcanic-hosted massive base and precious metal sulfide deposits on the ocean floor. He is developing a new analytical technique for this research using Time of Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (TOF-SIMS) analyses of melt inclusions that store miniscule samples of magmatic fluid in phenocrysts of volcanic rocks.

Dr. William Everett

Thursday, May 13 - Memory and the Pathways of Social Reconciliation.

Friday, May 14 - Empathy and the Pathways of Ecological Reconciliation.

Dr. William Everett is a Herbert Gezork Professor of Christian Social Ethics, Emeritus, at Andover Newton Theological School. Born and raised in Washington, DC, he was educated at Wesleyan University (B.A.), Yale Divinity School (B.D.), and Harvard University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (Ph.D.). 

After completing his graduate studies, he taught for fifteen years at St. Francis Seminary in Milwaukee and then for ten years in Atlanta at the Candler School of Theology, Emory University, where he also directed Candler's professional doctoral programs. His subsequent tenure at Andover Newton focused on issues of symbolism and ethics, ecology, and restorative justice. He has exercised lay leadership in Baptist and Methodist churches and has been a consultant to Lutheran, Roman Catholic and various ecumenical bodies. In the 80s Everett and his wife Sylvia developed the OIKOS Project on Work, Family, and Faith - a program of research and adult education.

In Thursday’s lecture Dr. Everett will lift up the role of re-creating common memory in American and South African struggles for justice and reconciliation, with particular attention to memories of slavery and expropriation of the land of indigenous peoples. Friday, Everett will explore our ecological crises which requires that we re-position ourselves in relation to the rest of the natural world. The challenge of recovering common memory leads us to the task of re-establishing our communication – our empathy – with that world. 

Dr. Yaron Brook

Thursday, July 29 - Capitalism without Guilt: The Moral Case for Freedom.

Friday, July 30 - Woodstock’s Legacy: The rise of Environmentalism and the Religious Right.

Dr. Yaron Brook is a prominent advocate for Objectivism, the philosophy of novelist Ayn Rand. As president of the Ayn Rand Institute, an educational organization based in Irvine, California, he is interviewed frequently in the media and has appeared regularly on the Fox Business Network to debate and discuss current economic and financial news from the Objectivist viewpoint. 

In Thursday’s lecture, Brook focuses on capitalism’s undisputed record of wealth generation, noting that it has always functioned under a cloud of moral suspicion. In a culture that venerates Mother Teresa as a paragon of virtue, businessmen sit in stoic silence while their pursuit of profits is denounced as selfish greed. Society tells businessmen to sacrifice, to serve others, to “give back”— counting on their acceptance of self-interest as a moral crime, with chronic guilt its penance.  It is time America heard the moral case for laissez-faire capitalism.

In Friday’s lecture, Brook will discuss how,  in 1969, Ayn Rand examined the cultural significance of two high-profile, but very different events: Woodstock and the Apollo 11 launch. In her lecture, "Apollo and Dionysus," Rand showed how philosophical ideas play out in a culture. She showed why these two events were a product of a long-standing philosophical dichotomy, reason versus emotion. 

Charles Armstrong

Thursday, September 23 - The Future of Human Spaceflight.
Saturday, September 25 - The Space Exploration Mission.

Charles Armstrong is a member of NASA’s Human Spaceflight community. He is currently the Systems Engineering and Integration Manager for Processes and Plans for Project Orion, NASA’s upcoming replacement for the Space Shuttle and the vehicle destined to take humans back to the Moon. Charlie is indeed what you might call a Rocket Scientist!  During his 30 year career at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, Charlie has worked on a variety of  major NASA projects or programs including the Space Shuttle, Shuttle-Mir, International Space Station, Assured Crew Return Vehicle, Orbital Space Plane and Project Orion. 

With the completion of the International Space Station and imminent retirement of the Space Shuttle, the future of human spaceflight is at a crossroads.  In Friday’s talk Mr. Armstrong will discuss the current thinking with regard to the future of human spaceflight and discuss the topics of the goals of human spaceflight, the implementation of those goals, and the role of commercial space transportation in the accomplishment of those goals.

Why explore space?  What has been accomplished?  These two questions will be the basis for Mr. Armstrong’s wide-ranging presentation as he discusses the political and economic reasons for space exploration as well as the history of space exploration from its earliest days through the present including the exploration of the planets and beyond.  

Dr. Vince Matthews

Friday, April 24 - China and India’s Ravenous Appetite for Natural Resources - Their Impact on Colorado.

Vince Matthews became State Geologist and Director of the Colorado Geological Survey in 2004. He received Bachelors and Masters degrees in Geology from the University of Georgia and a Ph. D. from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Dr. Matthews held tenured positions at two universities and has taught geology at the University of California, University of Northern Colorado, Arizona State University, the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture, and the University of Texas of the Permian Basin. As an executive in the natural resources industry for Amoco, Lear, Union Pacific, and Penn Virginia; Matthews explored for oil & gas in virtually every basin in the U.S.

In Friday’s lecture will discuss during the 1990s, China and India were unleashed from Communist and Socialist regimes respectively. China’s GDP is now growing at more than 10 percent per
year and India’s at 7-9 percent. Both are drastically increasing their use of all natural resources. Because the world’s mineral and energy resources are being strained to supply these exploding economies, the price of nearly every natural-resource commodity has escalated since 2003.

Colorado is already suffering from a shortage of several mineral commodities. Colorado is, and will be, significantly affected by this new world disorder. Its mineral and energy industry produced $11.7 billion in revenue in 2006 and $11.3 billion in 2007. Because Colorado is so rich in natural resources, the increased pressure to produce this natural wealth will probably result in increasing conflicts among various constituencies.

Dr. Marcus Borg 

Friday, August 7 – Thinking About Jesus Again.

Saturday, August 8 - Thinking About God Again.

Dr. Borg has appeared on NBC's "Today Show" and “Dateline,” PBS's "Newshour," ABC’s “Evening News” and “Prime Time” with Peter Jennings, NPR’s “Fresh Air” with Terry Gross, and several National Geographic programs.

Marcus J. Borg is Hundere Distinguished Professor of Religion and Culture. Known as one of the leading historical Jesus scholars of this generation, he is the author of sixteen books, three of which have become best-sellers. His doctoral degree is from Oxford University, and he has lectured widely overseas (England, Scotland, Austria, Germany, Belgium, Hungary, Israel and South Africa) and in North America, including the Chautauqua and Smithsonian Institutions. His work has been translated into ten languages.

Dr. Borg sees philosophy as primarily concerned with the role of ideas in our lives. “Ideas matter," Borg says, "much more than we commonly think they do - especially our world-views and values, namely our ideas about what is real and how we are to live. We receive such ideas from our culture as we grow up, and unless we examine them, we will not be free persons, but will to a large extent live out the agenda of our socialization."

Friday’s lecture compares and contrasts conventional Christian ways of seeing Jesus with how Jesus is seen by mainstream academic scholars. Saturday’s lecture compares and contrasts conventional Christian ways of thinking about God with a more ancient way of thinking about God and with contemporary atheism