Distinguished Scholars Schedule Honors Institute Presentations
Phi Theta Kappa members, advisors and alumni attending the 2008 International
Honors Institute in San Francisco will hear presentations on varying perspectives
of the 2008-2010 Honors Study Topic presented by outstanding scholars.
The
2008 Honors Institute will be held June 16-21 at San Francisco State University
(SFSU) in San Francisco, California. Registration will open soon.
Speakers
announced this week include Dr. Douglas Brinkley and Dr. Raquel Pinderhughes.
Dr.
Brinkley is currently the Fellow in History at the James Baker III Institute
for Public Policy and a professor of history at Rice University in Houston,
Texas.
His Institute topic will be "The Great Deluge: Hurricane
Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast," taken from his best-selling
book of the same name, which won a Robert F. Kennedy prize and was a finalist
for the Los Angeles Times Book Award.
Dr. Brinkley completed
his bachelor's degree at Ohio State University and received his doctorate
in United States diplomatic history from Georgetown University.
He
has taught at the U.S. Naval Academy, Princeton University and Hofstra
University. While a professor at Hofstra University, Dr. Brinkley spearheaded
the American Odyssey course, taking students on numerous cross-country
treks on which they visited historic sites and met seminal figures in politics
and literature.
Before going to Rice, Dr. Brinkley served as
professor of history and director of the Roosevelt Center at Tulane University.
From 1994 until 2005 he was the Stephen E. Ambrose Professor of History and
director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies at the University
of New Orleans.
Dr. Brinkley is a contributing editor for Vanity
Fair, Los Angeles Times Book Review and American Heritage,
as well as a frequent contributor to The New York Times, The New
Yorker, and The Atlantic Monthly.
Dr. Pinderhughes
is Professor of Urban Studies at San Francisco State University. Her teaching,
research and community activism focus on improving quality of life for
people living and working in cities.
In her Institute presentation
she will discuss green collar jobs, a term she originated in 2004 to describe
manual labor jobs related to improvements in environmental quality.
Her
landmark study,
Green Collar Jobs: An Analysis of the Capacity of Green Business to Provide
High Quality Jobs for Men and Women with Barriers to Employment, is
considered the definitive work on the subject, and has been used as a model
for various programs.
Her published works include Green
Collar Jobs: Work Force Opportunities in the Growing Green Economy,
Alternative Urban Futures: Planning for Sustainable Development
in Cities Throughout the World, From The Ground Up: The Role of Urban
Gardens and Farms in Low-Income Communities and Good Farming,
Healthy Communities: Strengthening Regional Sustainable Agriculture
Sectors and Local Food Systems.
In addition to her work
in the United States, she has conducted research and guest lectured in Havana,
Cuba, Curitiba, Brazil, and Rajasthan, India. Dr. Pinderhughes is president
of the Board of Directors of the Ecology Center, which runs the city of Berkeley's
recycling and farmers market programs, and Rising Sun Energy Services,
operators of programs to reduce residential energy and water consumption
in the Bay Area. She serves on the Board of Directors of Clean City, a non-profit
organization focused on cleaning, greening and beautifying the city of
San Francisco while providing job training and placement services for
people with barriers to employment.
