UIS Speaker Series explores free speech, political discourse, race, sexuality and the press as part of a Constitution Day panel discussion

WHAT: In recognition of Constitution Day, the University of Illinois Springfield Engaged Citizenship Common Experience (ECCE) Speaker Series will host a panel discussion on current issues related to free speech, political discourse, race, sexuality and the press. The panel will examine how the U.S. Constitution addresses the civil liberties related to these important issues. The panel discussion is free and open to the public.

WHEN: Monday, September 17, 2018, at 6 p.m.

WHERE: UIS Brookens Auditorium, located on the lower level of Brookens Library

DETAILS: Panelists include James LaRue, director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, and UIS Legal Studies faculty members Deborah Anthony and Eugene McCarthy.

LaRue is the author of “The New Inquisition: Understanding and Managing Intellectual Freedom Challenges” and was a public library director for many years, as well as a weekly newspaper columnist and cable TV host.

Anthony, an associate professor of legal studies, is an expert on modern and historical gender law and politics, constitutional law and employment discrimination.

McCarthy, an assistant professor of legal studies and the director of the UIS Pre-Law Center, is a scholar of constitutional civil liberties, corporate law and white-collar crime. With regard to civil liberties, his published scholarship addresses women’s reproductive rights in the context of constitutional originalism.

Individuals with disabilities who anticipate the need for accommodations should contact the UIS Speaker Series Office at 217/206-8507 or speakerseries@uis.edu in advance. For a list of other upcoming ECCE Speaker Series events, visit www.uis.edu/speakerseries/.

UIS Friday Night Star Parties return in September

The University of Illinois Springfield’s popular Friday Night Star Parties will resume the Friday after Labor Day and run through the end of October. Those dates include: September 7, 14, 21 and 28 and October 5, 12, 19 and 26. Friday Night Star Parties are held from 8 to 10 p.m., weather permitting, at the UIS Observatory on the roof of Brookens Library.

Star Parties are hosted by John Martin, UIS associate professor of astronomy/physics. The observatory’s telescopes will be used to view a number of celestial objects, including the planets Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn; the Moon, when visible; the Ring Nebula; globular star clusters M13 and M15 and other double stars and star clusters.

A typical Star Party begins with a presentation as visitors ascend the stairs to the observatory, learning about galaxies, the sun and stars along the way. On the roof observation deck visitors are invited to view the skies through telescopes and ask questions. Participants are welcome to arrive and leave as they wish between 8-10 p.m.

Friday Night Star Parties are free and open to the public. Reservations are not required, and groups are encouraged to attend. The entrance to the campus observatory is located outside Brookens Library on the southeast corner of the building.

Star Parties may be canceled for cloudy weather. Questions about whether the weather is suitable for viewing should be directed to 217/206-8342 at 7 p.m. on the evening of the Star Party. Participants may also follow the UIS Observatory on Twitter (@UISObservatory) for updates.

For more information on Star Parties, email John Martin at jmart5@uis.edu or visit www.uis.edu/astronomy/about/starparties/.

UIS Speaker Series explores the 1960s civil rights movement and social justice today

WHAT: The University of Illinois Springfield Engaged Citizenship Common Experience (ECCE) Speaker Series will host civil rights and peace activist Diane Nash as part of a presentation exploring the 1960s civil rights movement and social justice today.

WHEN: Thursday, September 13, 2018, at 6 p.m.

WHERE: UIS Student Union, 2251 Richard Wright Drive, Springfield

DETAILS: Diane Nash was prominently involved in some the most consequential campaigns in nonviolent civil rights movements. Nash will relate her experience at the center of the U.S. civil rights struggle, the grassroots movements that powered social change and the relevance of those lessons for a nation facing renewed challenges.

In 1960, Nash became the chairperson of the student sit-in movement in Nashville - the first southern city to desegregate its lunch counters - as well as one of the founding students of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee. She coordinated the Freedom Ride from Birmingham, Alabama to Jackson, Mississippi in 1961. Her arrests for civil rights activities culminated in Nash being imprisoned for 30 days in 1961, while she was pregnant with her first child. Undeterred, she went on to join a national committee—to which she was appointed by President John F. Kennedy—that promoted passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Nash later became active in the peace movement that worked to end the Vietnam War, and became an instructor in the philosophy and strategy of non-violence as developed by Mohandas Gandhi.

This event is co-sponsored by the UIS Student Government Association, Capital Scholars Honors Program, Residence Life, Leadership for Life, Students Transitioning for Academic Retention and Success, Necessary Steps Mentoring Program and the Nursing Pathways Living Learning Community.

Individuals with disabilities who anticipate the need for accommodations should contact the UIS Speaker Series Office at 217/206-8507 or speakerseries@uis.edu in advance. For a list of other upcoming ECCE Speaker Series events, visit www.uis.edu/speakerseries/.

UIS Visual Arts Gallery presents “digital dusk shadow storage” by St. Louis artist Amanda Bowles

The University of Illinois Springfield Visual Arts Gallery is pleased to present “digital dusk shadow storage,” an installation by St. Louis-based artist Amanda Bowles. The exhibition will open on Monday, August 27, and run through Thursday, September 20. A reception for the exhibit will take place on Thursday, September 6, from 5:30 to 8 p.m.

The immersive installation will feature crystalized tube towers, ghost images, sky blocks, and a large painting of fingers.

The artist describes the exhibit as “pink air, light refracting, iClouds float in a Midwestern sky. Civil twilight culminates in civil dusk; nautical twilight begins. A backdrop for an imperfect cinema, where horizons float on the surface of infinite data pools and time collects like condensation on cave walls.”

Bowles is an interdisciplinary artist whose work experiments with temporalities, utilizing material-specific processes to express a yearning for deep-time in the age of no-time. Employing mundane rituals, she constructs artifacts that visualize duration - loosely coalescent aggregates in video, installation, performance and text.

Interested in the ways relationships between self and others are evolving, as temporal experience is reframed by digital technologies and publics are rearranged into networks – Bowles works between the on and offline. Her practice demarcates the studio as a site for transformation and transmission, production and performance.

Bowles received her bachelors of fine arts from the Kansas City Art Institute and her masters of fine arts in art theory and practice from Northwestern University. She was born in Alexandria, Virginia.

She has exhibited nationally at spaces including, Averill and Bernard Leviton A+D Gallery, Chicago; Mary & Leigh Block Museum, Evanston, Illinois; The Luminary, St. Louis; H&R Blockspace, Kansas City; Artist Coalition Gallery, Kansas City; Concrete Utopia, Brooklyn, New York; Public Gallery, Louisville, Kentucky. She has screened work on AcreTV and at P3+, Hammond, Louisiana; The St. Louis Public Library, St. Louis; The Karras Performance Festival, Chicago, Illinois. Bowles is a founding member of Monaco, an artist-owned gallery in St. Louis.

The Visual Arts Gallery is centrally located on the UIS campus in the Health and Science Building, Room 201, and is open Monday through Thursday 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

For more information, visit the UIS Visual Arts Gallery website at www.uis.edu/visualarts/gallery or contact the gallery by phone at 217/206-6506 or by email at alach@uis.edu.

Third annual UIS Prairie Star 5K run/walk to raise money for the local Girls on the Run non-profit

WHAT: The University of Illinois Springfield will hold the third annual Prairie Star 5K run/walk to raise money for Girls on the Run of Central Illinois, a local non-profit organization. The Prairie Star 5K run/walk is open to UIS students, faculty, staff and community members.

WHEN: Saturday, September 8, 2018, at 8:30 a.m.

WHERE: The Recreation and Athletic Center (TRAC) on the UIS campus

DETAILS: The flat and fast race course will begin outside of The Recreation and Athletic Center (TRAC) and go east along scenic University Drive before entering the heart of campus. The race will end near TRAC on Eliza Farnham Drive where door prizes and awards will be distributed.

This year’s race will benefit Girls on the Run of Central Illinois, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to inspiring third through eighth grade girls to be joyful, healthy and confident. The 20-lesson Girls on the Run curriculum combines training for a 5K (3.1 miles) running event with lessons that inspire girls to become independent thinkers, enhance their problem solving skills and make healthy decisions.

The cost to register for the Prairie Star 5K run/walk is $8 for UIS students and $13 for faculty, staff, alumni and community. Registration is available online at www.uis.edu/campusrec/. You may also call 217/206-7103 or stop by TRAC in person to register for the race.

The deadline to register for the race and be guaranteed a t-shirt is Tuesday, Sept. 4 at 12 p.m. Participants may also register on the day of the race from 7:30 to 8 a.m., however they are not guaranteed a t-shirt. The run/walk is sponsored by UIS Campus Recreation, the Legion of Ladies student organization, UIS Cross Country and Track & Field, Chick-fil-A, SCHEELS, Noodles & Company and Stokes Race Timing Services.

For more information, contact Alexandria Cosner, UIS assistant director of fitness and wellness, at 217/206-8400 or acosn2@uis.edu.

UIS to co-host special Star Party viewing of the Perseid meteor shower

WHAT: The University of Illinois Springfield Astronomy-Physics Program, Lincoln Memorial Garden, and the Sangamon Astronomical Society will host a special Star Party to view the annual Perseid meteor shower.

WHEN: Monday, August 13, 2018, from 8:30 to 11 p.m.

WHERE: Lincoln Memorial Garden, 2301 East Lake Shore Drive, Springfield

DETAILS: The Perseid meteor shower takes place annually in the beginning of August when the Earth passes through a stream of debris crossing the Earth’s orbit from the Swift-Tuttle. The 2018 shower is predicted to peak between August 13 and August 14.

The Perseid meteor show is known for producing more fireball type meteors than any other meteor shower. In a dark location on any given night, between 3 and 5 meteors per hour can be spotted. During the peak of a shower like the Perseids there could be up to 60 meteors per hour.

People attending the event at Lincoln Memorial Garden should park in the spaces just off East Lake Shore Drive. Observing will be done in Crawley Meadow across the street from the nature center. Attendees are encouraged to wear bug repellant, dress appropriately for the weather and bring lawn chairs or blankets to sit on.

The meteor viewing may be canceled for cloudy weather. Questions about suitable weather viewing should be directed to 217/206-8342 after 7 p.m. on August 13. Updates will also be posted on the UIS Observatory Twitter feed (@UISObservatory).

For more information on UIS Star Parties, contact John Martin, UIS associate professor of astronomy-physics, at 217/206-8342 or jmart5@uis.edu.