All Strathmore Speaker Series and Onondaga Free Library events are now available on YouTube!
Click here to watch Jim McKeever and Nina Wickett on “Providing Hope at the Border”: https://youtu.be/GuegwNMMGmA
Join the Strathmore Speakers Series and Onondaga Free Library for an evening with Central New Yorkers Jim McKeever and Nina Wickett, both of whom have made several volunteer trips to the US-Mexico border to work with migrants and the organizations that support them. They have volunteered in Tijuana and San Diego, and Jim has also worked with Team Brownsville in Texas. In this insightful talk, Jim and Nina will share their experiences, including working alongside migrants in a community kitchen in Tijuana, escorting recently released ICE detainees to the San Diego airport to reunite with loved ones across the U.S., placing life-saving water and supplies in the desert, and delivering groceries to shelters in Tijuana. Jim and Nina say they have witnessed the extraordinary courage, resilience and gratitude of the migrants who are hopeful that the U.S. will welcome them. A brief Q&A will follow their presentation.
This event will be held on Thursday, April 13th at 7 pm on Zoom. Like all Strathmore Speaker Series and Onondaga Free Library events, this presentation is free and open to the public.
You can register for this event here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0rce-srz0uE9RjymaPSk84ngyI1QHuLLJh
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
About Jim McKeever and Nina Wickett
(L-R) Jim McKeever, Nina Wickett, and two young men who are migrants and who work at a community kitchen in Tijuana. Photo from ArtRage Gallery.
Jim McKeever was a staff writer for The Post-Standard in Syracuse for more than 20 years and has volunteered at the US-Mexico border numerous times since 2019. He is a co-founder of senseofdecency.com and shares the stories of asylum seekers and other migrants, including many who live in Central New York.
Nina Wickett spent most of her career in finance and accounting. She was the bookkeeper for the Syracuse Peace Council for 10 years. She volunteers with local immigration assistance efforts and since 2019, has been going down to the border with Jim McKeever to help asylum seekers.
(L-R) Jim McKeever, Nina Wickett. Photo provided.
All Strathmore Speaker Series and Onondaga Free Library events are now available on YouTube!
Click below to watch Rob Boston on “The Separation of Church of State in American Life.”
Join the Strathmore Speakers Series and Onondaga Free Library for an evening with Rob Boston, Senior Adviser at Americans United for Separation of Church and State, for an important discussion of the role the separation of church and state has played, and continues to play, in American life. “The ‘wall of separation between church and state’ is,” American United argues, “an American original—an American invention born in the Enlightenment, but first implemented in the great ‘American Experiment.’ Until then, no other nation had sought to protect the people’s right to think freely by separating religion and government.” Mr. Boston will provide a historical overview of this “wall of separation,” and highlight the ways in which Americans of all religions, creeds and political persuasions have sought to defend or compromise this uniquely American ideal. A brief Q&A will follow Mr. Boston’s talk.
This event will be held on Wednesday, February 22nd at 7 pm on Zoom. Like all Strathmore Speaker Series and Onondaga Free Library events, this presentation is free and open to the public.
You can register for this event here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZArce6hrz0pHNKyMBBNWPhnQZjH-FH9sZSS
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
About Rob Boston
Rob Boston is Senior Adviser at Americans United for Separation of Church and State and Editor of Church & State, AU’s monthly membership magazine. Rob, who has worked at Americans United since 1987, is the author of four books: Close Encounters with the Religious Right: Journeys into the Twilight Zone of Religion and Politics (Prometheus Books, 2000); The Most Dangerous Man in America? Pat Robertson and the Rise of the Christian Coalition (Prometheus Books, 1996); Why the Religious Right Is Wrong About Separation of Church and State (Prometheus Books, 1993; second edition, 2003) and, most recently, Taking Liberties: Why Religious Freedom Doesn’t Give You The Right To Tell Other People What To Do (Prometheus Books, 2014).”
All Strathmore Speaker Series and Onondaga Free Library events are now available on YouTube!
Click below to watch historian Dennis Connors on the Onondaga Arsenal and the War of 1812 in Syracuse.
Join the Strathmore Speakers Series and Onondaga Free Library for an evening with historian and former curator of the Onondaga Historical Association, Dennis Connors. Mr. Connors will recount the twisted tale, stretching over three centuries, of how our community treasured, remembered, and ultimately lost a unique link to its past: the Onondaga Arsenal. A brief Q&A will follow.
This event will be held on Thursday, November 10th at 7 pm on Zoom. Like all Strathmore Speaker Series and Onondaga Free Library events, this presentation is free and open to the public.
You can register for this event here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwoceyprzgsE9Hk9leC4ClQIZQMX5JjXHol
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
About Dennis Connors
Dennis Connors has worked in historical agencies since 1972 and as curator of history at the Onondaga Historical Association in Syracuse, New York from 1999 until his retirement in 2018. He was employed originally by the Association from 1992 to 1999 as its Executive Director. Previous to that, he was the Supervisor of Historic Resources for Onondaga County Parks for 14 years, overseeing three historic properties. He also served as executive director for the Landmarks Association of Central New York for three years. He recently was a contributing author for the New York State Encyclopedia Project and has authored and edited six books on Syracuse area history, the most recent being Syracuse’s Grand Hotel: A History, published in 2017. Mr. Connors has a history degree from the State University of NY at Buffalo with a concentration in museum studies.
About the Onondaga Arsenal
The Onondaga Arsenal is a little-known landmark structure hidden away on a hillside overlooking Syracuse’s Valley neighborhood. It is a fascinating local link to one of America’s earliest military struggles – the War of 1812. But its 200-year-old story is also an intriguing yet sad tale of our community’s own struggle to recognize and preserve the history embedded in its architectural landmarks. Local historian Dennis Connors will explore how the arsenal came to be built where it was and its role in the War of 1812; plus discuss the sometimes confusing, usually frustrating and often futile efforts to preserve it.
All Strathmore Speaker Series and Onondaga Free Library events are now available on YouTube!
Click below to watch SUNY ESF’s Dakota Matthews on the revival of the American Chestnut tree.
Join the Strathmore Speakers Series and Onondaga Free Library for an evening with Dakota Matthews, Molecular Lab Manager of SUNY ESF’s American Chestnut Research & Restoration Project. Before the turn of the century, the American chestnut was a significant part of American life. Because it could grow rapidly and attain huge sizes, the tree was often the outstanding visual feature in both urban and rural landscapes. Its wood was used wherever strength and rot-resistance was needed. And its edible nut was a significant contributor to the rural economy. Chestnut ripening coincided with the Thanksgiving-Christmas holiday season, and turn-of-the-century newspaper articles often showed train cars filled to overflowing with chestnuts rolling into major cities to be sold fresh or roasted. But with the introduction of Cryphonectria parasitica, the causal agent of chestnut blight, in the early 1900s, the American chestnut was reduced to a shadow of its former self: not quite extinct; but no longer able to thrive. Now, through the application of cutting-edge biotechnology, SUNY ESF’s American Chestnut Research & Restoration Project has developed a blight-tolerant American chestnut tree and is working to restore this iconic and valuable cultural symbol to the forest ecosystems of the eastern United States. Mr. Matthews will detail this pioneering work, provide an update on where the project currently stands, and outline the project’s ambitious goal of growing ten thousand blight-resistant American chestnut trees over the next five years. A brief Q&A will follow.”
This event will be held on Thursday, October 13 at 7 pm on Zoom. Like all Strathmore Speaker Series and Onondaga Free Library events, this presentation is free and open to the public.
You can register for this event here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUkcOGhrTgjEtC6kQ6qljHSzo2YW5KAAcBA
About Dakota Matthews
Dakota Matthews has been a part of the American Chestnut Research and Restoration Project for close to seven years. He holds a Masters in Plant Biotechnology from SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry and began working for the Project as a graduate student. In 2020 he was promoted to the position of molecular lab manager. His primary focus is on gene expression and copy number for transgenic events, as well as working with fungal cultures of the Chestnut blight for controlled inoculations.
All Strathmore Speaker Series and Onondaga Free Library’s events are now available on YouTube!
Click below to watch law professor Jenny Breen on “The Supreme Court and the Shaping of American Society.”
All Strathmore Speaker Series and Onondaga Free Library’s events are now available on YouTube!
Click below to watch Common Cause on “Redistricting, Gerrymandering, and the Independent Syracuse Redistricting Commission.”
STRATHMORE SPEAKERS SERIES 