September 2007
Leading Lights: Blix, Kolbert and Delaney Will Speak at the UW This Fall Print
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Hans Blix. Photo by E. Moreno Esquibel.
From WMDs to climate change, the defining issues of our day will be under discussion at the UW this fall, as three of the most prominent figures in their fields come to share their field notes. Former lead UN weapons inspector Hans Blix, environmental journalist Elizabeth Kolbert and pioneering oceanographer John Delaney will all speak at the University within a single two-week period in late October—part of an extraordinary season of lectures presented by or in partnership with the UWAA.

Elizabeth Kolbert may have done more to bring awareness of global warming to a wide audience than anyone but Al Gore—first with a three-part series of articles in The New Yorker, for which she won a National Magazine Award, and then with her influential book Field Notes from a Catastrophe. On October 17, she’ll visit Bank of America Arena for a moderated discussion about climate change. It’s part of a series of events surrounding her book’s selection as the UW’s 2007 common book—assigned reading for all incoming freshmen and transfer students and recommended reading for the rest of the UW community.

The next night,  Hans Blix, who oversaw the UN inspections if Iraq in the pivotal period before the U.S.-led invasion, will give a talk entitled “From a Cold War to a Cold Peace: Time for a Revival of Disarmament?” in Kane 130. Blix now chairs the independent international Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission and is a leading authority on proliferation and disarmament.

And on October 30, the UW’s own John Delaney will speak about the future of undersea exploration in the second annual Provost’s Distinguished Lecture. As director of the NEPTUNE Program, Delaney is leading the effort to build a network of permanent underwater observatories in the northeast Pacific Ocean.

Other highlights of the fall’s lecture lineup include:

• The College of Engineering’s Lecture Series: “Engineering the Best: Boomers, a Bridge & the Boeing 787,” October 23 and November 1 and 13, Kane 110.

• The iSchool’s Spencer G. Shaw Lecture: “Books & Boys—Making It Work!” by award-winning young-adult author Walter Dean Myers, October 24, Kane 220.

• The UW Bothell’s “Choice Words” Lecture: “Once More with Feeling: Whole People and Partial Lessons,” by David Goldstein, UW Bothell 2007 Distinguished Teaching Award winner, October 25, North Creek Events Center, Bothell.

Visit UWalum.com or call 206-543-0540 for complete information about all of these lectures, and to register.