February 2011 Community Lectures
Arctic Visiting Speakers Series
Arctic Research Consortium of the U.S.
For further information on AVS, please go to:
http://www.arcus.org/arctic_speaker/index.html
Or contact:
Julie Griswold
Email: julie [at] arcus.org
Phone: 907-474-1600
The Arctic Visiting Speakers Series (AVS), managed by the Arctic
Research Consortium of the U.S. (ARCUS) with funding from the National
Science Foundation Division of Arctic Sciences, funds researchers and
other arctic experts to travel and share their knowledge in communities
where they might not otherwise connect. Speakers cover a wide range of
arctic research topics and can address a variety of audiences including
K-12 students, graduate and undergraduate students, and the public.
The AVS program is proud to announce that Mr. Larry Merculieff will
travel from Anchorage, Alaska to the small rural town of Monmouth,
Oregon, home of Western Oregon University and the Paul Jensen Arctic
Museum. Mr. Merculieff's presentations will focus on Indigenous Elder
Wisdom from a variety of perspectives for several different audiences
over two days, 23-24 February 2011.
The lectures begin at 9:00 a.m. on the 23rd, with a youth presentation
to Kings Valley Charter School middle-school students and their teachers
entitled "The True Intelligence of the Real Human Being." This talk will
focus on the major elements of Merculieff's traditional upbringing from
age 4 to age 13. Wednesday afternoon at 3:00 p.m., Mr. Merculieff will
address a campus and community forum on "Indigenous Elder Wisdom for
Modern Times: Why It is Needed To Shift Paradigms That Are Pushing
Earth's Life Support Systems to the Edge." This talk will focus on the
spiritual and practical wisdom of Indigenous elders from Merculieff's
Aleut tradition and the traditions across the world. A reception will
follow, providing opportunities for informal interaction with the
speaker.
On Thursday morning Mr. Merculieff and hosts will travel to Chemawa
Indian School in Salem, about 20 miles from Monmouth. Chemawa, the
oldest continuously operating Native American boarding school in the
United States, will celebrate its 130th birthday Pow Wow a few days
after Mr. Merculieff's visit. He will speak to high school science
students on "Bridging Between Indigenous Ways of Knowing and Cartesian
Based Western Science: Why Is It Needed and What Can Indigenous Ways
Offer to Better Understand Nature." This will be a homecoming for Mr.
Merculieff--he was a student at Chemawa in his youth. After lunch with
students at Chemawa, Mr. Merculieff will return to Western Oregon to
meet at 1:00 p.m. with a university anthropology class for highlights
from the public presentation of the previous afternoon and the
opportunity to ask questions raised by their study of arctic cultures.
The final event, on Thursday afternoon at 3:00 p.m., is a teambuilding
workshop entitled "Traditional Ways, The Ways of the Real Human Being,
Elder Wisdom, and Team Building That Can Change Self and the World."
This interactive workshop will explore the myriad of ways used by
Indigenous cultures to unify the "mind" of the group so that everyone's
contribution is valued and used. Participants will learn how to express
seemingly polarized viewpoints without alienating any participant on the
team. Experientially, participants will learn a new way of listening,
expressing their thoughts, how one's truth is as equally valid as
another's truth, and why Indigenous ways are so critical in modern
times.
For more information on the tour, please see:
http://www.arcus.org/arctic_speaker/current_tours.html.
For further information on AVS, please go to:
http://www.arcus.org/arctic_speaker/index.html.
Or contact:
Julie Griswold
Email: julie [at] arcus.org
Phone: 907-474-1600