Presentation by Joyce Lackie. One expects disagreement in a democracy. Many feel, however, that the 2016 election has polarized the nation to an alarming degree. We see fledgling movements, some here in Portland, to counteract this polarization. Jonathan Haidt, author of The Righteous Mind, explains how people make political and religious decisions based on widely varying moral values. Searching for common ground, we look at the moral bases for how Republicans, Democrats, and Libertarians form many of their policies. Joyce has been a member of HGP since 2004 and serves on the program and scholarship committees. A Ph.D. from the University of Alabama, she has taught at three universities. She has been retired for twenty years and is now traveling and volunteering.
Presentation by Barbara Sorg. Starting from a very young age, humans are driven to seek out novel sensations and rewarding experiences. During adolescence, some seek out drugs because they create novel sensations. Repeated exposure creates new experiences and powerful persistent memories. Professor Sorg discusses what happens in the brain with rewarding experiences and how drugs can alter the brain’s structure and function to make addiction a chronic disease. Sorg is a professor in the Department of Integrative Physiology and Neuroscience and co-director of the Washington State University Translational Addiction Research Center.
We walk through this world with assumptions about how others view us. We don’t intend to have those filters, but we do because of how we were raised and because of what we have been exposed to in our lives. What does it look like to confront all of our preconceptions? What does it look like to reimagine how we interact with others? Jo H Victoria is a teacher, a youth advocate, and Unitarian Universalist lay leader. She lives in Eugene. Jo is passionate about creating safe spaces to confront our own bias and celebrate our diversity, and is an enthusiastic gardener.
Members share their research on influential women of science, politics, exploration and entertainment. Presentations include women who have changed the world but are not well known. Presenters were Anne Henderson, Joyce Lackie, Marsha Abelman, Lenora Warren, Arnie Panitch, Laurent Beauregard, and Carolyn Tomei.