Southwestern College will present several guest speakers in the sciences during March and April.  The speakers will speak in the Beech Science center in room 104.  There is no admission charge. Jay Labov, a Woodrow Wilson Visiting Scholar, will give the first presentation on Tuesday, March 9, at 7 p.m.
           
“The college is preparing to host four lectures on the topic of creation and evolution this semester,” says Andy Sheppard, academic dean at Southwestern College.  “Dr. Labov is a central speaker in that series and he brings a perspective on the issue as it relates to students and education.”
           
Labov is senior staff member of the National Research Council’s (NRC) Center for Education. He is the senior advisor for Education and Communications, splitting his time between the Center for Education and the National Academies’ Office of Communications. In this capacity, Labov leads an institution-wide effort to leverage the National Academies’ work in education by helping to make more deliberate connections between the work of the Center for Education, the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and the program units of the National Research Council.
           
He has been director of the center’s Committee on Undergraduate Science Education and oversees the National Academy of Science’s efforts to improve the teaching of evolution in the public schools.
           
He is the principal liaison on education activities between the program units of the National Academies and its office of communications, with the goal of enhancing communication with outside stakeholders about the Academies’ work in education and the public’s understanding of science and technology.
           
He has been the study director for several NRC reports including “Evaluating and Improving Undergraduate Teaching in Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology” (2003); “Learning and Understanding: Improving Advanced Study of Mathematics and Science in U.S. High Schools” (2002); and “Educating Teachers of Science, Mathematics, and Technology: New Practices for the New Millennium” (2000);
           
Prior to assuming his position at the NRC, Labov was a member of the biology faculty for 18 years at Colby College in Waterville, Maine.
           
Other scientists coming to Southwestern to speak include Niall Shanks on March 22; Henry “Fritz” Schaefer III on April 8; and Keith B. Miller on April 19.
           
For more information about any of the science speakers, contact Charles Osen at (620) 229-6295.