In Defense of Food: Connecting the Dots Between Sustainability and Health

Public address by Michael Pollan, Best-Selling Author and Professor of Journalism and Director of the Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism at UC Berkeley

Date: June 10th, 2008 at 5:00 PM
Location: Ira Allen Chapel

Free admission

Tickets are not required

Book Signing immediately following lecture

Through twenty years of writing, Michael Pollan has stimulated a national discussion of food systems and helped focus people on the places where the human and natural worlds intersect: food, agriculture, gardens, drugs, and architecture.

Pollan is the author, most recently, of In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. His previous book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, was named one of the ten best books of 2006 by the New York Times and the Washington Post.  He is also the author of The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World, A Place of My Own and Second Nature.

He has been a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine since 1987 and his essays have appeared in many anthologies, including Best American Essays (the 1990 and 2003 editions), Best American Science Writing (2004), and the Norton Book of Nature Writing. In addition to publishing regularly in the New York Times Magazine, his articles have appeared in Harper’s (where he served for many years as executive editor), Mother Jones, Gourmet, Vogue, Travel + Leisure, Gardens Illustrated, and House & Garden.

In 2003, Pollan was appointed the John S. and James L. Knight Professor of Journalism at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, and the director of the Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism. In addition to teaching, he lectures widely on food, agriculture, and gardening. Pollan, who was born in 1955, grew up on Long Island, and was educated at Bennington College, Oxford University, and Columbia University, from which he received a Master’s in English.

He lives in the Bay Area with his wife, the painter Judith Belzer, and their son, Isaac. His website is www.michaelpollan.com.

UVM's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, under the leadership of dean Rachel Johnson, will host Pollan's visit to Vermont this June.

Holistic Solutions to Global Environmental Problems: Integrating Technological Approaches with Political, Social, and Economic Realities

Keynote address by Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, the former Prime Minister of Norway, and former Director-General of the World Health Organization.

Date: Wednesday, October 15th, 2008 at 6:00pm
Location: Ira Allen Chapel at The University of Vermont

First Woman Prime Minister of Norway to give Aiken Lecture

The former prime minister of Norway and former director-general of the World Health Organization, Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, will deliver the 2008 Aiken Lecture at the University of Vermont on October 15th, 2008.

At age 41, Dr. Brundtland became the first woman prime minister of Norway and the youngest person ever appointed to the post. She led her country briefly in 1981, and then again in 1986-89 and 1990-96.

She achieved worldwide recognition as the chair of the UN World Commission on Environment and Development, today informally known as the Brundtland Commission, that promoted a now famous definition of sustainable development as that which "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

Dr Brundtland led the World Health Organization from 1998-2003 and now serves as special envoy on climate change for the United Nations Secretary-General.

UVM's College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, under the leadership of dean Domenico Grasso, will host Dr. Brundtland's visit to Vermont this October.