African-American social justice advocate Julian Bond (founder of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee in the 1960s, a leader of the 1963 March on Washington, Georgia legislator for twenty years, former chairperson of the NAACP and faculty member at the University of Virginia) will be the keynote speaker at this year's MLK Celebration (January 18, 7:30 p.m.). In this short video portrait he recalls his slave roots, growing up in the segregated South and his continuing work for Civil Rights.

A complete schedule of the 2-week MLK Celebration and ticket information is available at

Using the viral and controversial Kony 2012 Campaign as an entry point, African Studies students and professors Jonneke Koomen and Bianca Murillo will explore the stories we tell about Africa and their political and social implications.

Jonneke Koomen (assistant professor of politics) and Bianca Murillo (assistant professor of history) have extensive knowledge of Africa within their respective disciplines. Both have taught classes that explore the Kony 2012 campaign.

This anecdotal talk will focus on the techniques the Southern Poverty Law Center uses to battle hate groups and individual radical-right extremists, working to weaken or destroy them and their influence in the political mainstream.

As a Senior Fellow of the SPLC and editor-in-chief of its award-winning Intelligence Report magazine, Mark Potok helps lead the premier operation monitoring the extreme right in the United States. In addition to editing the magazine, Potok acts as a key spokesman for the SPLC, a well-known civil rights organization based in Alabama, and has testified before the U.S. Senate, the Helsinki Commission, the United Nations High Commission on Human Rights and in other leading venues. Before coming to SPLC in 1997, Potok spent almost 20 years as an award-winning reporter at newspapers including USA Today, the Dallas Times Herald and The Miami Herald. While at USA Today, he covered the 1993 siege in Waco, the rise of militias, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the trial of Timothy McVeigh. In 1996, his editors nominated him for a Pulitzer Prize for a package of stories on racism in Texas public housing. Most recently, Potok won a 2010 first-place Green Eyeshade Award for best investigative magazine article from the Society of Professional Journalists. In his current position, Potok is regularly quoted by major media, scholars and book authors in both the United States and abroad.

Since 1976, when the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty, there have been 142 exonerations of innocent people, wrongfully convicted of aggravated murder. At this Convocation we will hear from two of those exonerees, Juan Melendez and Greg Wilhoit, who have served a combined 22+ years on death row for crimes they did not commit.

After serving 18 years on Florida’s death row, Juan Melendez walked out and into a very different world. Unable to read or write English when he went in, now Melendez speaks to audiences across the country. He will be joined by Greg Wilhoit who served time on Oklahoma’s death row, and was also exonerated as an innocent man. Wilhoit is featured in the best-selling non-fiction book by John Grisham, The Innocent Man.

This Convocation is part of a tour, sponsored by Oregonians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and Witness to Innocence, which includes Lewis & Clark College, Oregon State University and Western Oregon University.

What do the following have in common: Penn State University, the BBC, the Catholic Church, and the Boy Scouts?

All of these organizations have been involved in recent and well-publicized child sexual abuse scandals involving high profile individuals who have been accused (and often convicted) of being child sex offenders.  Yet, what we hear about child sex offenders in the media is not always accurate.

This presentation will use national data to debunk three common myths about child sex offenders.  It will describe some of the good news that has been happening around the country on positive youth well-being trends and child abuse.

Wendy A. Walsh, Ph.D., is a research assistant professor of sociology at the Crimes against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire. Her research includes studies on enhancing community response systems of child abuse and the criminal justice response to child abuse.

This convocation is presented in conjunction with the Psychology Department Kaestner Speaker Series.

What are the particular challenges of depression that lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, trans and queer students face? What are the facts? What can be done and how can each of us be part of a supportive solution?

A native of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Cathy Busha is a faculty member with Chemeketa Community College’s Human Services program. Her work includes multi-issue community organizing, particularly LGBT, people of color, youth and immigrants.  She has worked professionally in the LGBT movement for 16 years, including positions at LGBT Community Centers in Tucson, Denver, and Boulder and as the first Director of LGBT Affairs at The University of Arizona.