What are the prospects for public education in America today? What conditions have brought about epidemic rates of depression, anxiety disorders, and substance abuse among both affluent and underprivileged youth? What does leaving no child behind really mean? Join us for a constructive conversation with four leading educators who are addressing current problems and revitalizing our nation’s most important social institution: our public schools. Related Themes: democracy, education

This public conversation in our series with the Center for Ethics in Society will deal with the vice of greed, a selfish or excessive desire for more than is needed. How much is enough? What enables advertisers to convince citizens to consume more than is reasonable? Are the seductive images of comfort, convenience, and sexual stimulation that bombard us in advertising edging out non-market values of care, community, love, and service to others? How might we as individuals and as a society understand greed and grow beyond it? Related Themes: citizenship, greed, vices, virtues

This conversation concerns loyalty and the limits to which it might be subject when viewed in particular historical, social, and political contexts. What roles does loyalty play in forming personal and social identities? What are the connections between loyalty, patriotism, and pride? Is there greater agreement that disloyalty is a vice than that loyalty is a virtue? With class and racial inequalities remaining deeply embedded in our social, political, and economic structures, what the place of loyalty in America today? Related Themes: citizenship, ethics, loyalty, vices, virtues

In the course of over fifty years of married life and raising four children, Irvin and Marilyn Yalom have made marks in their respective fields of psychotherapy and women’s studies with contributions through teaching and research leading to the publication of academic papers and popular books. Last year, they each presented their own research into death: Irv’s Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death and Marilyn’s The American Resting Place: Four Hundred Years of History Through our Cemeteries and Burial Grounds. Our conversation will begin with the Yaloms’ poignant explorations of human finitude and then turn to the story of their time together as a dual-career academic couple. Related Themes: books, couples, creativity, death

The Tibetan plateau, a land mass about the size of Western Europe, has great biodiversity despite its high altitudes. Known as “Asia’s Watertower,” Tibet’s glaciers feed rivers in China, India, and Southeast Asia. The region’s importance cannot be overstated, nor can the short- and long-term effects of environmental problems such as the declining quality of grasslands, melting glaciers, and rising population. Our conversation begins with a look at the physical geography of Tibet and will assess the impact of development projects and efforts to protect and restore an ecological system that is crucial for much of the planet. Related Themes: environment, justice, Tibet

First published in 1998 and reissued in a tenth anniversary edition, Parker Palmer’s The Courage to Teach takes teachers of all levels on an inner journey toward reconnecting with themselves, their students, and their colleagues in ways that reignite vocational passion. The book builds on a simple premise: good teaching cannot be reduced to technique but is rooted in the identity and integrity of the teacher. Effective teaching takes myriad forms but good teachers share one trait: they are authentically present in the classroom and weave a life-giving web between themselves, their subjects, and students who must learn how to weave a world for themselves. Join us for a conversation with a teacher’s teacher who has a lifetime of ideas, insights and stories to share. Related Themes: courage, education, vocation