Science with Passion & a Moral Compass
A Symposium Honoring John Vandermeer

Friday, May 6, 2016 at 4:30 PM – Sunday, May 8, 2016 at 12:30 PM

RSVP, Registration and information HERE

“Science with Passion and a Moral Compass: A Symposium Honoring John Vandermeer“ will bring together a group of scholars and activists who have been influenced over four decades by John Vandermeer and who are working on topics related to science and social justice. The event will honor John’s 40 years of teaching, research, and service at the University of Michigan (no, he is not retiring). We are also hoping that this will be a wonderful re-union of scholars and activists committed to making, using and disseminating science for the common good. All are welcome, please RSVP.

Tentative Schedule:

 Friday May 6

Informal Gathering: Tap Room, ABC Brewpub, 114 E Washington St, Ann Arbor

• 4:30 – 7:00                Azteca Chess Tournament with Luis Garcia-Barrios
• 7:00                           Social with Cash Bar

Saturday May 7 Symposium @ 1040 Dana

• 8:00 Registration
• 8:30 – 8:45 Welcoming by Diarmaid Ó Foighil and Gerry Smith
• 8:45 – 10:30 Panel: Science, Politics, and Power  

Ed Russell – Capitalism, environment, and technology
Doug Boucher –Scientists and theories of progressive change
Helda Morales – Women in science in Latin America: politics, power and the influence of Vandermeer
Joseph Graves – Greater is their sin: biological determinism in the age of genomics
John Soluri – Academia’s matrix: migrations, mutations, and mutts

• 10:30 Break, Picture: 1970’S and 1980’S
• 11:00 –12:00 Short Talks: The Dialectics of Science, Education and Politics in Action  

Phillis Engelbert –Bio 101: teaching biology with a social conscience
Brian Schultz – Teaching sustainable agriculture in a liberal art context
Margaret Reeves – Science and the farm labor movement
Scott Schneider –The use and limits of science in protecting workers from occupational hazards
Katherine Yih-The New World Agriculture Group

• 12:00 – 1:00 Lunch/Discussion
• 1:00 – 1:15 Picture: 1990’s
• 1:15 – 3:00 Panel: Towards a Revolutionary Food Systems

Jahi Chappell – The passion and the moral compass: strange attractors and a phase-space of political ecology
Catherine Badgley – Transforming the food system
Angus Wright – History as a companion plant for agroecology
Peter Rosset – Social movements, agroecology and food sovereignty
David Alonso –Will dietary shifts solve current global environmental crisis?

• 3:00 Break, Picture: 2000’s
• 3:30 – 4:30  Short Talks: Doing Ecology in Human-Managed Ecosystems

Shalene Jha, Stacy Philpott, Heidi Liere, Brenda Lin – Biodiversity, sustainability, and ecosystem services in urban agricultural landscapes
Bruce Ferguson, Paul Foster and Daniel M. Griffith – The matrix in 4D: the temporal dimension of biodiversity conservation in agricultural landscapes
Iñigo Granzow de la Cerda – The role of matrix characteristics on beta-diversity of bryophyte and perennial seed-plant metacommunities in arid scrubland fragments
Javier Ruiz – Changes in tropical forest diversity
Krista McGuire – Fungal (not ant) responses to human land use in the tropics
Eduardo Somarriba – Age-yield-planting density relationships in deciding when to rehabilitate or renovate a cocoa/coffee plantation

• 4:30 Break, Picture 2010’s
• 5:00 – 6:00 Short Talks: The Interpenetration of the Socio-Political and the Ecological

Patrick Christie – Generating knowledge for action: dilemmas and opportunities
Gerald Urquardt – Ecological, social, and political dynamics along Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast
Susan Wright – Knowledge suppressed/knowledge generated: JV and agbiotech vs agroecology
Naim Edwards – From nature’s matrix to urban agroecologist
Ginger Nickerson – John, the Bluefields group, and participatory action research: modeling love through action
Luis Garcia Barrios and Juana Cruz Morales – Azteca Chess: an educational tool to explore the emergence of autonomous pest control in Mesoamerican shade coffee

• 7:30  Reception and Tribute

Sunday May 8 Symposium @ 1040 Dana

• 9:00 – 9:20 Deborah Goldberg – John Vandermeer, the Consummate Ecologist
• 9:20 – 10:30 Panel: Theoretical Divagations or the Ability to be Puzzled by the Obvious

Mercedes Pascual – Some reflections on critical transitions for John
Luis F. Chaves – The dynamics of latifundia formation
Rob Colwell – Contingency and determinism in biology
Theresa Ong, Doug Jackson, Dave Allen and Senay Yitbarek – An insatiable appetite for curiosity: a celebration of “Outside of the Box” in honor of John Vandermeer

• 10:30 Break, Group Picture (all years)
• 11:00 Richard Levins: Reflections about John (Video)
• 11:15 Keynote Lecture: John Vandermeer – Science with Passion and a Moral Compass
• 12:30 NWAEG lunch