How can our work of InFocus at Moravian College help build a world where human beings collectively flourish and heal from so many forces that divide us?
"Education must do more than prepare [young people] for college or jobs. It must equip them with the mindset needed to address the many challenges facing this country and the world. Right now, we’re coping with the pandemic, a severe economic crisis and the growing reality that climate change will totally alter the future in ways we can barely imagine. Educational issues are rarely seen as a priority in national politics."
"Education must show [students] how to apply what they learn to confront the problems facing the world. It must cultivate their agency and ability to think critically so that they will refuse to accept or adapt to injustice, and refuse to see racism as simply an unfortunate aspect of life. Education must empower students and provide them with the capacity to approach our collective problems with courage, resourcefulness and creativity." From Pedro A. Noguera, "Education Will Be Critical in the Fight for Democracy and Anti-Racism."
Email Sustainability Co-directors Dr. Alison Holliday and Dr. Theresa Dougal for advice about planning and orchestrating initiatives, programs, and projects, and to inquire about limited funding support! See the InFocus website for more information.
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Please let us know what you think of the InFocus Highlights!
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Communicating about Climate Change and Sustainability in a Democracy at Risk
Tuesday, Feb. 16 at 7 p.m.
How do the public and decision-makers come to understand complex scientific, environmental, and technological issues? What role do politics, expertise and culture play? Professor of Communication, Public Policy and Urban Affairs at Northeastern University, Matthew Nisbet is a cutting-edge researcher whose work draws on environmental science, philosophy, religion, political science, communication studies and more, to explore "the importance of moderation in politics and life." |
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Open to the public: see zoom link below
For more information, contact Professor of Global Religions, Kelly Denton-Borhaug, denton-borhaugk@moravian.edu.
This event is sponsored by Moravian's Global Religions and Political Science Departments, and by InFocus Centers of Investigation.
Are you trying to better understand what took place in the 2020 election? The Jan. 6 insurrection on the Capitol? Stewart pulls back the curtain on the inner workings and leading personalities of a movement that exploits religion in pursuit of political power. Over the last decades, and by forging alliances between reactionary religious leaders and far-right economic interests, the Christian nationalist movement has evolved into a densely interconnected set of think tanks, legal advocacy groups, networking groups, and policy organizations that has an outsized influence in today’s political climate. |
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The InFocus Sustainability Film Series
Tuesdays at 7 pm (through zoom)
I am Greta
Tuesday, March 2, 7 p.m.
This highly moving documentary follows climate activist Greta Thunberg from the very beginning of School Strikes for Climate to the growth of a global youth climate movement. There is so much to be learned from Greta's strategy for change (the School Strikes for Climate), and her words are just unforgettable. If you ever thought you lacked the power or imagination to make change, you should see this. (1.5 hour film, followed by discussion)
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 LECTURE
Tuesday March 9, 7pm
Dr. Jennie Stephens
Title: Diversifying Power: Why We Need Antiracist, Feminist Leadership on Climate and Energy
All politics is now climate politics, so all policies, from housing to health, now have to integrate climate resilience and renewable energy. We need to reclaim and restructure climate and energy systems so policies are explicitly linked to social, economic, and racial justice.
Thanks to Dean of Natural and Health Sciences Diane Husic for organizing this event, as a result of her collaboration with Dr. Stephens through the National Council for Science and the Environment (now the Global Council) - an organization that tries to bring together scientists, practitioners and policymakers
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Register Now for the Writer's Conference at Moravian College
March 26-27
Featuring Writers Camile T. Dungy and J. Drew Laningham.
Writing Nature: Refuge or Threat?
This conference will explore the ways in which people experience natural landscapes as sites of both inclusion and exclusion. How do we as writers communicate sustainability from our many different positions of race, class, gender, ability, location, and more? What stories do we hope to tell, and how can we best tell them?
These events are sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and by the Moravian College Arts & Lectures Committee.
Contact Joyce Hinnefeld or Kate Brandeis for more information.
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"Sustaining a Life By Design"
"The Urban Forest Project," featuring award-winning Mark Randall
ART EXHIBITION through Thursday 4/1/21
Payne Gallery, Moravian College
Years before the concept of social impact design existed, Mark Randall was gaining an appreciation for its need in the world. Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, he hiked through the lush forests of Washington, witnessing the effects of clear-cutting from the back seat of the family station wagon, and watched countless PSAs featuring Woodsy Owl. Now Randall has become a leader in the emerging field, using design to advance environmental and social causes. Contact Professor Camille Murphy for more information.
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The Spring 2021 InFocus Town Hall is coming!
With 11 courses led by 15 Moravian Faculty, over 200 students are beginning their InFocus research. The week of April 15 to 19 they will come together in breakout sessions led by Moravian Faculty mentors and leaders/experts from our wider community for dialogue and multidisciplinary learning, as they work together to imagine how research informs activism and advocacy. More to come from these InFocus courses and researchers representing the disciplines of Art, Biology, Education, Health Policy, Eivironmental Writing/Activism, Nursing, Political Science, Global Religions and Speech-Language-Pathology.
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The goal of InFocus is to support innovative intellectual labor, leadership and energy that will lead to a more just society, vibrant democracy and sustainable and equitable existence. Through InFocus, people at Moravian College learn that their educational pursuits not only prepare them for meaningful work in the world, but also open pathways to build important links between their individual lives and the most urgent questions and concerns collectively facing us and our planet as a whole.
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This film showcases the experiences of a Black soldier who was one of the original Yosemite park rangers in 1903. Many U.S. Americans are unaware of the role played by the first official protectors of California's amazing state parks, but recently, Representative Jackie Speier of California has worked to enact the House of Representatives Bill 520: Buffalo Soldiers in the National Parks Study Act in order to authorize the Department of the Interior to conduct a study of alternatives for commemorating and interpreting the role of the Buffalo Soldiers in the early years of the National Park system (1 hour film, followed by discussion). Come join in! 
odernization in twentieth-century Mexico. My work has been published as articles in various journals and book chapters in edited collections both in the United States and Latin America. I am a member of a network of historians who work on food and nutrition in Latin America (REHSNAL) and the
This is my fifth year as an assistant professor in the education department, where I direct our secondary certification and graduate programs. I teach courses about reflective practice in secondary schools, curriculum theory, science education, and educational research methods that forward practitioner inquiry and participatory action research. These courses all emphasize the role that systems of education play in both resisting and reproducing inequalities, and I encourage the pre-service and practicing teachers I work with to be agents of change by addressing the multiple forms of oppression that circulate in educational settings. I have also had the opportunity to teach First Year Writing Seminar twice, where I developed a course exploring the intersections between science fiction and social justice. I am thrilled at the opportunity to serve as a Co-director with Dr. Aguilar on the next iteration of the Poverty and Inequality InFocus area, and look forward to collaborating with members of the college community to explore and address these topics in the Lehigh Valley and beyond.
Our second keynote speaker, J. Drew Lanham, is the Alumni Distinguished Professor of Wildlife Ecology and author of The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature—from which we were fortunate to hear him read when he spoke at Moravian College several years ago.
"I can't breathe" forms an intersection of environmental justice and social justice. Sam Grant works with frontline communities that are disproportionately impacted by environmental issues, yet historically excluded from the conversation. He directs an organization, MN350.org, that works to "ensure that all voices — white, black and brown; indigenous and immigrant; rural and urban — are heard and honored in securing a safe climate." 
