LIVERMORE — If you ever visit National Parks or medical offices, drink or use water (that’s all of us), worry about global warming or wonder at secrets hidden in the nighttime sky, the Rae Dorough Speaker Series has a 2017-18 lineup of your dreams.
Launched in 2008, the lecture series named for longtime Livermore resident and community activist Rae Dorough introduces local, national and international experts who comment on contemporary topics.
In any single season, the issues presented at Livermore Valley Performing Arts Center’s Bankhead Theater most often include science, performing arts, nature and literature. The one-hour presentations are followed by a Q&A that places broad emphasis on local interests or concerns as audience members interact with the speaker — with gentle reminders from hosts to ask questions and not use the moment to deliver a lecture of their own.
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One of the particular delights of the lively exchanges are the questions posed by young people. The series works cooperatively with the Livermore Joint United School District to admit high school students free of charge. Other students are admitted at the Bankhead’s reduced youth price.
“When youths are here, they really add great questions and input,” says series Board President Charles Hartwig. An appearance last year by New York Times Bestselling author and former Stanford’s Dean of Freshmen Julie Lythcott-Haims was energized after students asked about selecting courses and colleges.
“She told them great schools don’t have to be Ivy League, not to take a Spanish course solely because it was on the counselor’s list and to make sure that they were involved — not just their parents — in ultimately choosing a college or university,” he said.
This year, the series covers a wide range of hard science, practical medical and real-life information, and futuristic vision.
Oscar-nominated, Emmy-award winning writer and director David Vassar addresses filmmaking and history and activism in National Parks (Oct. 5). Yosemite and Hetch Hetchy Valley receive special attention with historic film clips accompanying Vassar’s environmental documentary work.
Kaiser Health News editor-in-chief Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal brings clarity as well as authority to a most-topical discussion of the Affordable Care Act and attempts to repeal it, California’s single payer initiative, and the sweeping challenges of our national health system and more (Dec. 12).
Tackling the wooly beast is ambitious, according to Hartwig. “We didn’t expect health care to be as big as it is; it became so because of the presidential election. We chose it because it’s something everyone thinks about, from when they’re little kids through adulthood.”
Which begs the question, how are speakers and topics selected?
“The board decides, with input that we encourage from audiences and supporters,” said Hartwig. “We go for a good mix. This year it’s working out that more of the speakers are local. We’ve had people travel from all over the country, but we limit that mostly due to costs. To be honest, we can find a lot of remarkable people nearby.”
Hartwig said diversity is always the goal. Although this year’s roster has only one woman and four men, the 1:4 ration is a deviation from norm. Averaged over the entire series history, gender parity is 50:50. “Diversity in regards to race and background is an ongoing concern and we could do a bit better there,” said Hartwig.
Proximity to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory supplies or attracts from other regions a healthy number of speakers.
The series second half in 2018 kicks off with David Shoemaker, senior research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Kavli Institute, to speak on gravitational-wave astronomy (Jan. 18).
“His is the first group in the world that could see gravitational waves. It took fantastic technology, extreme capability to do it at all,” said Hartwig.
A long-sought engagement with UC Merced brings professor of engineering Roger Bales from the university to talk about the lessons learned from the drought and future water management (Feb. 15).
Livermore Lab atmospheric scientist Ben Santer wraps up the series with a backward-to-forward look at global climate science and “fingerprints,” the patterns of influence exerted upon the climate that are left by human beings and other forces (March 29).
