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Events at Smith

Learning Garden Design Workshop
February 25, 2022
Smith students--- Do you want to get your hands dirty this spring? Have you always wanted to garden on campus, but don't know where to do it? The Learning Garden is a student-led growing space and it needs YOU! Join the Botanic Garden and Design Thinking Initiative for a workshop to design this year's Learning Garden. This event is a great way to get involved in the Learning Garden early in the season, meet others who are interested in horticulture, and to dream big for spring. No previous gardening experience necessary. This is the first of a series of workshops to kick off student involvement in the Learning Garden. Have questions? Email Sarah Loomis, sloomis @smith.edu. Register for this workshop below:
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Design Thinking Initiative, Capen Annex
3:00 pm to 5:30 pm

Events Off Campus

Webinar- Finding Common Ground Among Science, Spirituality, and Environmentalism:
February 22, 2022
How Can Spiritual and Faith-Based Knowledge Systems Inform the Weather, Water, and Climate Enterprise? Presented by the American Meteorological Society (AMS) Interfaith Committee, hear stories, work, ideas from panelists across various spiritual/faith-based backgrounds on environmentalism, and how the AMS and spiritual/faith communities can work together in this important space. This is one of a series of topics related to conversations, work, and ideas on collaboration and relational building between the AMS and faith/spiritual communities. Panelists: Rabbi Geoff Mitelman - Sinai and Synapses; Dr. William (Bill) Hooke - American Meteorological Society; James Rattling Leaf, Sr. - Cooperative Institute Research Environmental Sciences, North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center; Dr. Emma Frances Bloomfield - University of Nevada, Las Vegas; Nana Firman - GreenFaith. Register below:
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Virtual
12:00 pm to 1:30 pm

Diversities, Disparities, & Climate Seminar Theme: Extreme weather’s
February 23, 2022
impact on marginalized populations. Two presentations. 1) The inequitable impact of natural disasters: Advising MA policymakers on mitigating the impact of flooding and post-flood hazards on populations most at risk. With Christian Guzman (Assistant Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering) and Seda Salap-Ayça (Lecturer, Geosciences). 2) Integrating social and behavioral contexts into severe weather warning system technologies and operations. With Brenda Phillips (Research Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering). Hoted by Umass Amherst Institute for Diversity Sciences. Register at the link below:
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Virtual via Zoom
10:00 am to 11:30 am

(Virtual) Engineer and Scientist Career Panel
February 23, 2022
Are you interested in a career with EPA? This virtual event will introduce you to science and engineers careers at EPA. What's in it for you? You will: Hear from EPA engineers and scientists about their experiences working for EPA; Learn what it takes to get a federal job; Experience a networking opportunity with EPA staff and managers. Register using the link below:
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Virtual
12:00 pm to 2:00 pm

Film screening of 'River of Return' and a very special post-film panel
February 24, 2022
Join a free virtual film screening of 'River of Return' and a very special post-film panel featuring River Newe for the RVA Environmental Film Festival. Film synopsis: Follow Jessica and Sammy Matsaw, Shoshone-Bannock tribal members and co-founders of River Newe, as they share their story about hope, resilience and resurgence, and the vitality of sharing lands and waters with today's tribal youth and the generations to come. With post-film Q+A and discussion around Traditional Ecological Knowledge and decolonizing and reconnecting to homelands, places, and knowledge. Free and open to all. This event is co-sponsored by the Department of Biology at Virginia Commonwealth University and the NSF-funded River Field Studies Network. Register at the link below:
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Virtual
6:30 pm

Lecture: Nature’s Best Hope
February 24, 2022
Everyone has a significant role to play in the future of the natural world. Join Dr. Doug Tallamy, Professor in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware, to learn about an approach to conservation that starts in your own yard. Recent headlines about global insect declines and three billion fewer birds in North America are a bleak reality check about how ineffective our current landscape designs have been at sustaining the plants and animals that sustain us. To create landscapes that enhance local ecosystems rather than degrade them, we can encourage native plant communities that sustain food webs, sequester carbon, support native bees, and protect our watersheds. Open to the public. Register at the link below. (Students can register for free by contacting jbenkley@smith.edu)
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Virtual
6:30 pm

Sustainable Fashion is Sew Cool: A Panel Discussion
February 25, 2022
In honor of No Fast Fashion February, join a panel discussion about sustainable fashion hosted by the University of California, Merced. Panelists include: Judy Lemon, a sustainable and ethical fashion blogger based in San Diego, California; Joanne Brasch, PhD, Special Projects Manager at the California Product Stewardship Council; Samantha Tollworthy, Founder of Teddy Locks; Dhamar Romo Chavez, FABSCRAP’s Community Coordinator; Casey Dworkin, Founder and Creative Director of vegan and plant-based footwear brand, Sylven New York; and Amira Chandni Dhanoa, an environmental equity consultant, model, multimedia artist and researcher. The event is free and open to the public. Register at the link below:
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Virtual
12:00 pm

Events at Smith

Indigenous Perspectives on Adversity: The Wisdom of the Coconut
March 2, 2022
A Zoom Grounded Knowledge Panel™ of Indigenous Elders. Smith College's Office of Equity and Inclusion presents another Grounded Knowledge Panel™ (GKP) convened by Valerie Joseph, PhD (AEMES Mentoring Administrative Director, Smith College, and originator of GKPs). Funding for this event was provided from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Five Colleges, Incorporated Gathering at the Crossroads Project. A Grounded Knowledge Panel is a public conversation by a small group of people who have realistic, authentic and personal experience and understanding of a particular topic or question. As the Grounded Knowledge Panelists converse among themselves, audience members are invited as “witnesses” to observe the discussion. Both groups — panelists and witnesses — bring a distinctive power and depth to the experience of speaking and listening. Those activities are no longer ordinary. This Grounded Knowledge Panel brings together Indigenous folk who have devoted their lives to the unfettered celebration of their cultures and to the resistance to cultural, economic and psychological domination. Through this conversation, they offer their thoughts about the adversity they have encountered as individuals and as colonized subjects who are in vociferous resistance to their oppression. The coconut serves as a useful metaphor and starting place to talk about adversity, struggle and liberation. Panelists include Atossa Soltani, Founder, Amazon Watch; Hank Hanalei Fergerstrom, Head of Native Elders Council; Kumu Ramsay Taum, Director, PILI at Hawaii Pacific University; and Failautusi Avegalio, Director, PBCP, University of Hawaii. Open to all, register at the link below:
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Virtual via Zoom
4:00 pm

Workshop: Spatial Interpolation
March 3, 2022
With Wayne Ndlovu ‘22. This exercise is designed to introduce the concept of interpolation and how to use this method in ArcGIS Pro. In this exercise we will be using Chloride concentration data collected by Dr Julie Richburg at Kampoosa Bog in Stockbridge and Lee, MA in 1998 as part of her Master’s Thesis Project. The goal of her project was to understand the effects of road salt pollution on the plant diversity and distribution within the wetland. Using the kernel and kriging/co-kriging interpolation methods we will show the predicted spatial variation in chloride concentrations throughout this wetland. The format of this guide is adapted from the Model water quality using interpolation lesson by Eric Krause. Register for the workshop using the link below:
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Sabin-Reed 104
4:00 pm to 5:00 pm

Presentation of the Concentrations
March 4, 2022
Do you know what a concentration is and how it differs from a minor? A major feature of a concentration is that it connects real-world experience to academic learning through internships and work in the field. If they wish, students can take a concentration in addition to a major and minor. The structure of concentration requirements makes it possible for students to explore a concentration topic that is in a completely different field than their major. The first part of this event will review the common features and shared goals of all of the concentrations at Smith. During the second part, you will be able to move between Zoom rooms to learn about specific concentrations, including Archives, Community Engagement & Social Change, Environmental, Journalism, Poetry, and Translation Studies. Use your Smith information to get the meeting link, below:
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Virtual via Zoom
12:15 pm to 1:15 pm

Connecting Threads: DIY Yarn Out of Waste
March 4, 2022
Join Studio Design Partners and EcoReps at the Design Thinking Initiative to transform packing materials that would otherwise become waste into yarn for crocheting. The event is first come, first served; the space can accommodate about 20 people.
Design Thinking- Capen Annex
4:30 pm to 6:00 pm

CEEDS presents A Naturally Sweet Saturday
March 5, 2022
Join CEEDS staff and students for a maple sugar boil with sap from the MacLeish Field Station. Stop by to sample some sap, have a pancake with some real New England maple syrup, and learn more about how maple syrup is made. We will be there between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. Come on by!
Chapin Loading Dock
11:00 am to 3:00 pm

Events Off Campus

MORE THAN JUST TALK: Dialogue & Environmental Justice
March 1, 2022
How can dialogue build common ground for equity and justice? What is the role of dialogue within our movements? How do we build effective alliances to end environmental injustice and support sustainability? Join a zoom conversation with Olivia Dreier and Tina Johnson to explore these questions and more! For the past three years, Tina and Olivia have co-facilitated Transforming the Conversation on Carbon Pricing. This unique initiative brings a range of climate justice activists and policy advocates together for confidential dialogues that cultivate common ground. Register at the link below:
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Virtual via Zoom
4:00 pm

Webinar: Always Already Sustainable: How Alpaca Wool's Associations with Andean Indigeneity
March 3, 2022
Help Define it as Environmentally Sustainable with Patricia Alvarez Astacio, Assistant Professor in the Anthropology Department, Brandeis University. Alvarez Astacio is a Puerto Rican anthropologist and filmmaker whose scholarly research and creative practice develops in the folds between sensory and experimental ethnography and the documentary arts. Her most recent works converge on issues of indigenous labor and knowledge in capitalist creative industries, multispecies relations and representations of indigeneity in Latin America. Register below:
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Virtual
12:05 pm

Events at Smith

Info Session: International Experience Grants (for students)
March 8, 2022
The Lewis Global Studies Center will be awarding International Experience Grants (IEGs) for Summer 2022. Come learn more about how to apply!
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Virtual via Zoom
12:15 pm

SAL Workshop: Data Collection with ArcGIS Field Maps
March 9, 2022
With Haley Schmidt ‘22. Interested in learning how data is collected in the field? In this workshop we will learn how to use ArcGIS Field Maps for field data collection and GIS mapping. Field Maps is a mobile app that combines data collection, map viewing, and location tracking. We will use it to map street lights around campus. We will then learn how to upload and use this data in ArcGIS Pro. Come prepared to spend some time outside! Register for the workshop below:
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Sabin-Reed 104 (& we will be outside for parts of the workshop)
12:15 pm to 1:15 pm

The Threat of Nuclear War: A Presentation and Conversation with Michael Klare and Ira Helfand
March 9, 2022
What's the big deal about nuclear weapons? Is nuclear war really a threat these days? Experts Michael Klare and Ira Helfand will discuss the security situation in Europe in light of the current crisis, as well as the danger of nuclear war and its consequences together with potential actions and solutions. Michael Klare is Five College professor emeritus of peace and world security studies, and director of the Five College Program in Peace and World Security Studies (PAWSS). Ira Helfand is former President of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, recipient of the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize, and cofounder and past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility. This event is hosted by student affiliates of Back From the Brink, a US-based grassroots coalition advocating for better nuclear weapons policies to secure a future free of the threat of nuclear war. Use the link below to join the meeting:
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Virtual via Zoom
8:00 pm

Connecting Threads: Gallery Conversation with visiting artist Sheila Pepe
March 10, 2022
Smith students are encouraged to bring their own crochet or knitting projects to stitch under Red Hook at Bedford Terrace, an installation-in-progress that opens to the public on March 11. Explore art, making, labor, and connectivity in dialogue with the artist. Moderated by Ruby Lowery ‘21, Student Programs Coordinator (OSE). Part of the Connecting Threads community-wide creative crochet project brought to campus by CEEDS, the BG, DTI, JCCE, OSE, and SCMA.
Meet in the SCMA lobby
12:15 pm to 1:00 pm

Study Break at the Bulb Show (for Smith students only)
March 10, 2022
Blend your own herbal tea, enjoy snacks, and try out a few botanical activities among the bulbs. Let the flowers and fragrances of the Bulb Show offer you a restorative lift. Please RSVP at link below:
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Lyman Plant House
4:30 pm to 6:30 pm

Events Off Campus

Restorative Indigenous Research in the Kwinitekw (Connecticut River Valley)
March 7, 2022
A talk with Dr. Margaret A. Bruchac (Abenaki) open to Hampshire and 5 College NAIS Community. [Food-To-Go Following the Event] Traces of Indigenous history may be difficult to see beneath the bustle of present-day cities situated along the Kwinitekw (Connecticut River). Yet, many generations of Native people lived here, sustained by local flora and fauna and supported by reciprocal trade and diplomacy with their Native neighbors. During the 1600s, when Native leaders in Nonotuck (now Northampton and Hadley) invited English colonists to found a small settlement, they also attempted to preserve, in written deeds, Indigenous rights to hunt, fish, gather, and plant here in perpetuity. During the late 1600s into the 1700s, colonial warfare forced local Native communities to disperse, but they did not disappear; they folded into other Native communities in diaspora, retaining memories of lost homelands. Some Native families maintained a presence in the region throughout the 1800s, traveling familiar waterways, marketing baskets and brooms, and dispensing traditional Native medicines. These histories were, however, obscured by historical, scientific, and museological representations that, in effect, re-colonized Native peoples, living and dead. Indigenous histories can be better understood and recovered by critically analyzing colonial documents, revisiting Indigenous landscapes, consulting with living Native people, and dismantling the romantic stereotypes that pushed Native people into the vanished past. Dr. Margaret M. Bruchac (Abenaki) – in her multi-modal career as a performer, ethnographer, historian, archeologist, and museum consultant – has long been committed to critical analyses of colonial histories and recoveries of Indigenous histories. At the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Bruchac holds appointments as an Associate Professor of Anthropology, Coordinator of Native American and Indigenous Studies, and Associate Faculty in the Penn Cultural Heritage Center. Bruchac also directs “The Wampum Trail,” a restorative research project designed to reconnect wampum belts in museum collections with their related Indigenous communities. She has long served as a consultant to New England museums, including Historic Northampton, Historic Deerfield, and Old Sturbridge Village. Her 2018 book – Savage Kin: Indigenous Informants and American Anthropologists (University of Arizona Press 2018) – was the winner of the Council for Museum Anthropology Book Award.
Franklin Patterson Hall, Main Lecture Hall, Hampshire College
5:00 pm

Webinar: Coral Reparations
March 10, 2022
Coral restoration involves the interplay of interdisciplinary science, corporate public relations, global crisis, and local politics. We are familiar with the story of coral in the Anthropocene: tropical coral reefs are the "rainforests of the sea", extremely vulnerable to "human" threats of destructive fishing, pollution, and climate change, and dying at an alarming rate. Mainstream arguments for restoration highlight the private capital and techno-scientific experts who are growing super-coral and building large-scale underwater infrastructure to rehabilitate entire coral colonies. But are there ways to foster coral becoming that do not replicate the white supremacy and naked capitalism of Anthropocene science? Speaker Amelia Moore, Associate Professor of Marine Affairs, University of Rhode Island studies coastal and island life and the marine sciences in The Bahamas, Indonesia, and the United States utilizing anti-racist and anti-colonial methods, perspectives, and relationships. Register below:
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Virtual
12:00 pm to 1:00 pm