OU professors to hold forums for greek chapters

Six faculty forums including a brief presentation, Q&A and refreshments will begin at 6:30 p.m. tonight at various greek houses as part of the Greek Community Forums.

Communication professor John Banas will discuss “Failed Friendships and Broken Marriages: The Importance of Conflict Communication” at the Chi Omega house, 820 Chautauqua Ave. Interim Honors College dean David Ray will discuss “Seven Ways to Get the Most From Your OU Education” at the Alpha Tau Omega house, 1100 College Ave. Classics professor J. Rufus Fears will discuss “Do You Want to Change the World?” at the Delta Delta Delta house, 1611 College Ave.

Health and exercise science professor E. Laurette Taylor will discuss “Sleep Yourself to Better Grades & Health: No Kidding!” at the Alpha Chi Omega house, 1115 College Ave. Engineering professor Jerry D. Holmes will discuss “On Your Life’s Journey, When You Come to a Fork in the Road, Take It” at the Sigma Alpha Epsilon house, 730 College Ave. Classics professor Kyle Harper will discuss “From Ancient Greece to Guantanamo Bay: A Brief History of Human Rights” at the Alpha Gamma Delta house, 930 Chautauqua Ave.

Israeli scholar to lecture on anti-Semitism and the Middle East conflict

Robert S. Wistrich, director of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, will present a free public lecture on “Anti-Semitism and the Middle East Conflict” at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, in the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History’s Great Hall. Wistrich is an internationally acclaimed scholar of anti-Semitism and of the Holocaust.

“Professor Wistrich’s subject is critically important today when radical Islam violently targets the United States, Israel and Jews everywhere,” Stephen H. Norwood, OU history professor, stated in a press release. “The increasing support for anti-Semitism on the contemporary campus is truly alarming.”

The lecture is sponsored by the OU department of history, with support from the president’s office.

College of Architecture to hold hall’s topping-out ceremony

The OU College of Architecture will host Gould Hall’s topping-out ceremony – that the maximum height of a building’s structure has been reached in its construction – at 11:30 a.m. Thursday.

A small evergreen tree signifying growth a broom, signifying a ‘clean sweep’ with no injuries during the construction, and an American flag showing that the structure was built in America with American labor, will be placed at the top of the structure.

Guests will be able to view the Gould Hall construction through a designated observation area. As part of the topping-out ceremony tradition, those attending may sign a beam to be placed in the building. Brief remarks will be given by Charles Graham, dean of the OU college of architecture, Flintco representatives and a representative of OU Architectural and Engineering Services.

Long-time activist to speak at Center of Social Justice launch

Charlotte Bunch, an activist, author and organizer in the women’s, civil and human rights movements for four decades, will speak at 5 p.m. Thursday at the launch of the newly established Center for Social Justice in the union’s Beaird Lounge.

The Center is a new program established in the Women’s and Gender Studies Program of the OU College of Arts and Sciences.

The Center for Social Justice was formed to inspire, educate and engage students in social justice issues and to respond to the urgent need to prepare students for pressing local and global challenges.

“The idea of a center came from students,” Jill Irvine, OU Women’s and Gender Studies director, stated in a press release. “Students came to the program after seeing films about the working conditions in sweatshops, or after having read about the systematic rape of women in the Democratic republic of Congo. They wanted to take it to another level. The center offers them a way to bring these issues to the campus and community.”

For more information about the event, the Center for Social Justice or the OU Women’s and Gender Studies Program, please contact the program at 325-3481 or go to wgs.ou.edu.

Gaylord students to teach Bangladeshi journalists over break

Journalism and mass communication students Alex Page and Hailey Branson will travel to Bangladesh over the winter break to help train Bangladeshi journalists. The students will work with Gaylord College faculty from Jan. 4 to 11 in Dhaka.

The faculty and students will be training young video journalists from South Asia as part of a U.S. State Department training program run by OU’s Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication.

“Alex and Hailey will set a great example and empower a generation of women there to build broader skill sets and assume greater degrees of leadership. I’m proud that so many highly qualified Gaylord students competed to be a part of this exciting, very important international training mission,” said Joe Foote, Gaylord College dean.

Page and Branson will travel with four veteran journalists: Ken Fischer, broadcast journalism professor; Elanie Steyn, journalism professor; Bob Dickey, news director for the award-winning student newscast, OU Nightly; and veteran CNN and NBC foreign correspondent Mike Boettcher, who is serving as a visiting professor at Gaylord College for the 2009-2010 academic year.

These workshops are part of a six-year project at OU funded by the Citizen Exchange Program of the U.S. State Department. Nearly 200 South Asian journalists have been trained in Norman and their home countries. The current project includes journalists from Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan. Each student will also have an opportunity to do a video project of his or her own while there and will use new tools to report back to Oklahoma.

–Daily staff reports