Institute for Policy, Ethics, and Culture (IPEC) News Blog

Author: Erin Syth

Indigenous Peoples’ Day Gathering & Speakers Event

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All are welcome to a gathering honoring Indigenous Peoples’ Day on Monday, Oct. 9, 11:30-1:00 p.m. This annual holiday celebrates the histories and cultures of Indigenous peoples across the Americas. We will welcome James Rattling Leaf and Michael Waasegiizhig Price to the Michigan Tech campus in honor of the event.

Rattling Leaf will speak about leading with Indigenous cultural intelligence to advance equity in a changing climate; Waasegiizhig Price will share Anishinaabe insights on adapting to a changing climate. Please see their bios below.

This event will be held in the Alumni Lounge in the Memorial Union Building. The session will open with an opportunity to meet and visit with our honored guests while sharing light refreshments; presentations will commence around noon. For those interested in meeting with our guests before this event, please contact Erika Vye at ecvye@mtu.edu.

For more information and Google Calendar invite click here.

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Join Us for IPEC’s Fall Membership Get-together!

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Members and non-members both are invited to the Rozsa mezzanine from 6:00-7:30 p.m. on Thursday, October 12 for heavy appetizers and drinks. Then join us afterwards for The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage, a one-hour opera in the McArdle Theatre. Free opera tickets are available by contacting IPEC Director Stefka Hristova, shristov@mtu.edu.

Add to Google calendar.

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Aritra Chakrabarty (SS) Receives IPEC Funding to Attend International Public Policy Association Conference

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Aritra Chakrabarty (SS) received a $1000 grant through the IPEC small grant program to attend the International Public Policy Association Conference as an executive committee member of the newly formed Global South -Policy Process Research Network (GS-PPRN). Chakrabarty and the GS-PPRN executive team worked for over a year to provide a platform for Global South scholars working in the realm of public policy in different sectors. The conference was held in Toronto, Canada, June 26-27, 2023.

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Art+ Activism: Artist Talk & Panel Discussion

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Please join the Rozsa Art Galleries and The Institute for Policy, Ethics, and Culture on Thursday September 14 (3-Spm) for a presentation and discussion on the theme of art and its role in activism. The event will feature an engaging artist talk from Rozsa visiting artist Erin Hoffman. There will also be a conversation on the topic lead by Rich Canevez (Humanities), Stefka Hristova (Humanities), Soonkwan Hong (College of Business) and Terri Jo Frew (Visual & Performing Arts).

Click here for more information.

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How Black College Students Learn Code Switching

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Join us for an open lecture with author, entrepreneur, and public speaker George Paasewe on his book “How Black College Students Learn Code Switching”. George will help to imagine a campus community where all members are culturally aware, sensitive, and can effectively communicate with one another. Find solutions to overcoming racial tensions and education on becoming a social change agent through learning and mastering the tool of code-switching.

Register here.

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The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage, a Guerilla Opera Production

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“Thrilling Adventures as much a triumph as it is a bit of wacky fun.”  Aaron Keebaugh, Artfuse 2023

The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage is a new one-act opera by composer Elena Ruehr and librettist Royce Vavrek, adapted from the steampunk graphic novel written and drawn by Sydney Padua, commissioned, produced, and performed by Guerilla Opera. This comedic new opera features Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage, the true-life unsung inventors of the first computer, in an alternative universe where they use their new invention to “fight crime.”

Ada Lovelace was a mathematician, gambler, and proto-programmer, whose writings contained the first ever appearance of general computing theory. Charles Babbage was the eccentric inventor of the “Difference Engine”, an enormous clockwork calculating machine that would have been the first computer, if he had ever finished it.

Ada Lovelace was the first great genius to develop a programming language, and who is still not generally known. By bringing this historical figure to light, this opera demonstrates that there is a history of great scientists that are women.  

The project is a collaboration with the Department of Computer Science; the College of Computing; the College of Sciences and Arts; and the Institute for Policy, Ethics, and Culture. It is part of the celebration of 50 years of computer science at Michigan Tech.

Tickets available at the Rozsa website.

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Libby Meyer Receives New Funding

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Libby Meyer (VPA) is the principal investigator (PI) on a project that has received $25,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts.

The funding will be used to bring Guerilla Opera to the McArdle Theater on Oct. 12-15 for five performances of Elena Ruehr’s new comic opera, “The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage,” based on the graphic novel of the same name by Sydney Padua.

The project is a collaboration with the Department of Computer Science; the College of Computing; the College of Sciences and Arts; and the Institute for Policy, Ethics, and Culture. It is part of the celebration of 50 years of computer science at Michigan Tech.

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Alexandra Morrison and Adam Wellstead Co-authors of Paper Published in Teaching Public Administration

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Alexandra Morrison (HU) and Adam Wellstead (SS) are co-authors of a paper published in Teaching Public Administration.

The paper is titled “Reclaiming public service ethics through algorithms: Implications for teaching and development.”

Helen Dickinson of the School of Business, University of New South Wales- Canberra, Australia, is also a co-author of the paper.

In this multidisciplinary authored paper, Morrison, Wellstead and Dickinson argue that public service leaders must be attentive to ethical questions that converge around adopting “data-driven” techniques, including algorithmic decision-making. Algorithmic and technology focused ethics question assumptions about the current deficits within public service ethics pedagogy in public service programs and university programs and the future direction of the discipline. To do so raises longstanding but neglected questions about the public services’ role in the state.

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Richard Canevez Receives New Funding

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Richard Canevez (HU/IPEC), in collaboration with Lara Zwarun of the University of Missouri – St. Louis, has received a $6,625 research contract from the Waterhouse Family Institute for the Study of Communication and Society.

The project is titled “Commodification of Religious Iconography as Resistance in Saint Javelin.”

The project will explore the intersection of diasporic, religious and political identity among the Ukrainian communities in America and Canada as considered through the use of religious iconography as part of the commercialized aspects of Ukraine’s resistance against Russia’s escalated 2022 invasion.

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