Inauguration Symposium to highlight students, faculty, academic leaders

An extraordinary opportunity, that's how many are viewing the inauguration of Alice P. Gast. She is being inaugurated as Lehigh's 13th president during an official ceremony on Friday, April 13 that will feature an array of visiting dignitaries and guests, as well as many members of the Lehigh family. A celebration with food and music will follow the ceremony, which is being held at Stabler Arena.

While the ceremony is a focal point, several other events are planned to commemorate the inauguration during a three-day period, including an Inauguration Symposium on Thursday, April 12 in Zoellner Arts Center's Baker Hall, and an Inauguration Family Day of Service on Saturday, April 14.

For information about the tradition of inaugurations, read Lehigh inaugurations bridge past, future.

The academic symposium, titled A Celebration of Research and Its Global Impact, features five scholars of the highest international distinction as keynote lecturers. These five individuals hold a number of impressive awards—ranging from the Nobel and the Pulitzer Prizes to a National Medal of Science—and they share membership in many of the world's most prestigious academies and professional societies. Collectively, the subject matter they will discuss represents areas of interest to all members of the Lehigh community.

This celebration will also highlight the dynamic, intellectual contributions of Lehigh faculty members who will guide the symposium, as well as introduce and interview keynote speakers. Lehigh faculty will also lead discussion groups in the weeks leading up to the event in pre-inauguration seminars centered on the research contributions of the keynote speakers.

During the symposium, an exhibition of undergraduate and graduate student research and scholarship will be held in Zoellner's Butz Lobby, bringing attention to the range and remarkable caliber of creative student projects at Lehigh.

Lehigh faculty and outside keynote lecturers featured in the symposium include:

Master of Ceremonies

Robert J. Thornton

Robert J. Thornton, the Charles W. MacFarlane professor of economics, who will act as master of ceremonies. Thornton has written approximately 90 articles on various subjects in the field of labor economics and has written or edited 15 books and collective volumes including Fundamentals of Labor Economics, and Developments in Litigation Economics. He served as national president of the National Association of Forensic Economists, and is the recipient of the Lindback Award for Excellence in Teaching and the Carl and Ingeborg Beidleman Research Award.

8:30 a.m.–10:00 a.m.
Horst Stormer	Horst Stormer, the I. I. Rabi Professor of Physics and Professor of Applied Physics in the Department of Physics at Columbia University. Stormer is a Nobel Prize and Benjamin Franklin Medal winner in physics. He is a recipient of the Buckley Award from the American Physical Society and the Otto Klung Physics Award from Freie University in Berlin. In addition, he is the former head of the Physical Research Laboratory at Bell Laboratories.
Shalinee Kishore	Stormer will be introduced by Shalinee Kishore, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering. Kishore is the recipient of the top award given to young scientists and engineers by the federal government – the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers and is the recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER Award.
Thomas L. Koch	Following his remarks, Stormer will be interviewed by Thomas L. Koch, the Daniel E. '39 and Patricia M. Smith Chair and director of the Center for Optical Technologies, professor of electrical and computer engineering, and professor of physics. Koch is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and is a fellow of Bell Labs, of the Optical Society of America, and of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). He has also received the Distinguished Lecturer Award and the William Streifer Award for Scientific Achievement from IEEE LEOS.

10:30 a.m.–11:45 a.m.
Ann M. Graybiel	Ann M. Graybiel, the Walter A. Rosenblith Professor of Neuroscience in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Graybiel is a National Medal of Science winner; Killian Award winner (the highest honor given to an MIT professor); member of the National Academy of Sciences, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and Institute of Medicine; and a fellow of the American Academy of Neurology.
Patricia H. Manz	Graybiel will be introduced by Patricia H. Manz, assistant professor of school psychology. Dr. Manz received the National Head Start Research Scholars Award for her dissertation, and was subsequently awarded the Mary Switzer Merit Research Fellowship by the U. S. Department of Education, National Institute of Disability Rehabilitation Research. She has recently been recognized as an Early Career Scholar by the Society for the Study of School Psychology. Dr. Manz is a member of the editorial board for School Psychology Review.
Colin J. Saldanha	Following her remarks, Graybiel will be interviewed by Colin J. Saldanha, assistant professor of biological sciences. Saldanha has been the recipient of several awards including the Christian R. & Mary F. Lindback Foundation Junior Faculty Award, Eleanor & Joseph F. Libsch Early Career Research Award and most recently, the Donald B.& Dorothy L. Stabler Award for Excellence in Teaching.

1:00 p.m.–2:15 p.m.
Jeffery Stout	Jeffrey Stout, professor in the Department of Religion at Princeton University. Stout is president of the American Academy of Religion and is the former Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Princeton (1989-92). He is also a two-time winner of the American Academy of Religion Award for Excellence, in 2004 (for Democracy and Tradition), and in 1989 (for Ethics after Babel).
Ziad W. Munson	Stout will be introduced by Ziad W. Munson, assistant professor of sociology. Munson is the author of Becoming an Activist, a study of recruitment and mobilization in the American pro-life movement, to be published by the University of Chicago Press. He has also authored articles and chapters on the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, religion and politics in the U.S., civic engagement and associationalism, and the role of civil society in wartime, and was the recipient of distinction in teaching awards, Harvard University.
John Pettegrew	Following his remarks, Stout will be interviewed by John Pettegrew, associate professor of history and director of American studies. Pettegrew is the author of Brutes in Suits: Male Sensibility in America, 1890 -1920; A Pragmatist's Progress?: Richard Rorty and American Intellectual History, edited, chapter, and introduction by Pettegrew; and, co-edited, the three-volume documentary history of American feminism, Public Women, Public Words.

2:45 p.m.–4:00 p.m.
Arjun Appadurai	Arjun Appadurai, the John Dewey Professor in the Social Sciences and Senior Advisor for Global Initiatives at The New School in New York City. Appadurai is president of PUKAR, a non-profit organization in Mumbai (India). He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, former director of the Center for Cities and Globalization at Yale University, and is the founding director of the Chicago Humanities Institute at the University of Chicago.
Arpana G. Inman	Appadurai will be introduced by Arpana G. Inman, assistant professor of counseling psychology. Inman is the recipient of multiple awards including, the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation Junior Minority Faculty Award; Excellence in Supervision Research Award from the Society of Counseling Psychology, Section on Supervision and Training, American Psychological Association; the Exemplary Diversity Leadership Award from the Association of Multicultural Counseling and Development, American Counseling Association; and Recognition of Outstanding Service and Contribution as Vice President, Asian American Psychological Association.
Elizabeth F. Vann	Following his remarks, Appadurai and will be interviewed by Elizabeth F. Vann, assistant professor of anthropology. Vann is a cultural anthropologist whose areas of ethnographic interest include global capitalism, consumerism, and competing cultural standards of intellectual property and authenticity in Vietnam and the US. She is currently working on a book about the intersection of global brands, transnational production, and local consumption practices in Vietnam.

4:30 p.m.–5:45 p.m.
Mark Strand	Mark Strand, professor in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. Strand won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1999 and the MacArthur Fellowship in 1987. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and has served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress (1990-1991). He is also the former Andrew MacLeish Distinguished Service Professor of Social Thought at the University of Chicago.
Stephanie P. Watts	Strand will be introduced by Stephanie P. Watts, assistant professor of English. Her stories, essays and poems have appeared or are forthcoming in several journals including Obsidian III, the African American Review, the Oxford American and New Stories from the South: Best Short Fiction of 2007. She has received honors and awards for her work by the Atlantic Monthly and the Associated Writing Programs. She is currently at work on a novel.
Bob Watts	Following his remarks, Strand will be interviewed by Bob Watts, professor of practice in English. Watts' poems have been published in Poetry, The Paris Review, New York Quarterly, and The Southeast Review, among other journals. His first collection of poetry, Past Providence (David Robert Books, 2004) won the Stanzas Prize for excellence in poetic craft.

More details about the symposium, exhibition, the pre-inauguration seminars/discussion groups and information on becoming involved in these events will be shared in the future.

All are encouraged to participate. Tickets are not required for the symposium events. Open seating will be available on a first come, first served basis, and it is recommended that those planning to attend arrive 15 minutes before the start of each lecture to be seated. More details will be shared in future communications. In the meantime, please be sure to mark your calendars.

For more information about the inauguration, read President Gast's inauguration set for April.