2011 Conference Speakers and Program
37th Annual Conference
Eastern Community College Social Science Association
The ECCSSA Board of Trustees and the Program Committee at Erie Community College are pleased to announce the
37th Annual Conference of the Eastern Community College Social Science Association.
We invite you to join us!
Scholarships are Available for Conference Registrations!
ECCSSA has received funding to award partial scholarships for those desiring to attend the conference.
Join us for our Friday evening gourmet dinner with speaker in the Statler Dining Room
on the ECC-City Campus--a Culinary Arts Program Restaurant!
Pre-Conference Session, Keynote Speakers and Program Highlights are below!
Pre-Conference Program
Thursday, March 31, 2011, 5:30pm – 10:00pm
Welcome Reception- Statler Dining Room
5:30pm-7:30pm
7:30pm
Documentary Film and Discussion
Film: ‘Capitalism—A Love Story’ by Michael Moore
Moderators:
Paul Kochmanski, Adjunct Professor, Social Science and Mary Altair, Assistant Professor, Social Science,
Erie Community College
Keynote Speakers
Robert Borosage
Founder and President
Washington, DC
Topic Overview: “America’s Economic Future”
Opening Keynote Address, Friday, April 1, 2011, 9am, Auditorium, City Campus
Robert Borosage is founder and president of the Institute for America’s Future and co-director of its sister, Campaign for America’s Future. He writes regularly on politics and economics. He is a contributing editor of The Nation and a regular blogger on The Huffington Post. Borosage is founder and board chair of Progressive Majority. He is co-founder and board chair of ProgressiveCongress.org, and a member of the board of Working America. He previously founded and directed the Campaign for New Priorities, a non-profit coalition of over 100 organizations calling for post-Cold War reinvestment in America. He served as director of the Institute for Policy Studies where he remains as a board member. He has also served as an issues advisor to progressive political campaigns, including those of Paul Wellstone, Barbara Boxer and Carole Moseley Braun. He was senior issues advisor for the 1988 Jesse Jackson Campaign. Borosage is a graduate of Yale Law School and holds a master’s degree in International Relations from George Washington University.
Manning Marable
M. Moran Weston and Black Alumni Council Professor of African-American Studies
and professor of history and public affairs at Columbia University.
Saturday, April 2, 2011, 9am, Auditorium, City Campus
Having either written or edited nearly 20 books and scholarly anthologies, Dr. Manning Marable is one of the most influential and widely read intellectuals in the United States. Dr. Marable’s books and anthologies include: The Great Wells of Democracy: The Meaning of Race in American Life; Freedom on My Mind: The Columbia Documentary History of the African American Experience; Freedom; and Let Nobody Turn Us Around: Voices of Resistance, Reform, and Renewal: An African-American Anthology, including an upcoming biography on Malcolm X.
A national leader in the fields of African American studies and ethnic studies, Dr. Marable is currently Columbia University's Professor of Public Affairs, Political Science, and History, in addition to being the founder and director of the Institute for Research in African American Studies at Columbia University.
He received his BA from Earlham and his PhD from University of Maryland. Prior to joining the faculty at
Columbia, Marable taught at the University of Colorado at Boulder and Ohio State University, where he was
chairman of the Department of Black Studies. He also served as the founding director of the Africana
and Hispanic Studies Program at Colgate University.
Join us for our Friday evening gourmet dinner with speaker in the
Statler Dining Room on the ECC-City Campus--a Culinary Arts Program Restaurant!
Paul Zarembka
Professor of Economics
State University of New York at Buffalo
Topic: What Underlies Our Current Economic Crisis?
Dinner Speaker, Friday, April 1, 2011,6pm, Statler Dining Room, City Campus
Paul Zarembka, is general editor since 1977 of the annual hardback Research in Political Economy (Emerald Group, Bingley, UK, www.emeraldinsight.com/books.htm?issn=0161-7230). It addresses economic and political issues from the perspective of the social classes involved. He is the author of Toward a Theory of Economic Development, editor of Frontiers in Econometrics (with the Daniel McFadden chapter cited for his 2000 Nobel Prize),
and co-editor of Essays in Modern Capital Theory.
Zarembka has been a senior researcher at the International Labor Organization, Geneva, Switzerland, and a Fulbright-Hayes lecturer in Poznan, Poland. Working within the marxist tradition, he has principally focused on issues surrounding the accumulation of capital. His recent edited book is The Hidden History of 9-11 (Seven Stories Press, New York). He is professor of economics at the State University of New York at Buffalo.
Paul Zarembka has been a activist in his faculty/professional staff union since 1981. He has served as campus president and grievance officer for academics, the office he currently holds. Currently, he is running for the statewide President of the union, the United University Professions.
Michael Niman
Associate Professor of Journalism and Media Studies
Buffalo State College
Topic: “Naming the Crisis: Contextualizing Disaster”
Closing Address, Saturday, April 2, 2011, 12:30-1:30pm, Auditorium, City Campus
Michael I. Niman looks at what we commonly term an “Economic Crisis,” and
argues that what we are actually facing is a social and political crisis commonly contextualized by a compliant
media as a fiscal exigency. The resultant discussion is generally limited to which draconian cuts we should make to
our social safety nets instead of examining broader policy alternatives and challenging the resurgent feudalism that he believes is actually at the root of this crisis.
Michael I. Niman is an Associate Professor of Journalism and Media Studies at
Buffalo State College and a syndicated columnist whose work has earned him two Project
Censored awards. His writing regularly appears in The Humanist, Alternet, ArtVoice and
Coldtype as well as in dozens of other venues in the US, Canada, Europe and South Africa.
Niman, a trained ethnographer, is author of People of the Rainbow: A Nomadic Utopia (2nd
edition in-press - Univ. of Tennessee Press), an ethnography of a nomadic utopian society
stemming from qualitative research conducted in Pennsylvania, Wyoming, Minnesota,
Vermont, Missouri, New York, California and Quebec, Canada. Niman’s research agenda
currently focuses on propaganda, the impact of consumer culture, temporary autonomous
zones, nonviolent conflict resolution and nonhierarchical societies. Niman formerly
worked as a journalist based in Costa Rica and has conducted fieldwork in Canada,
Guatemala, Nicaragua, the United Kingdom, Cuba and Belize
CONFERENCE PROGRAM
Historical Dimensions
Cultural Effects of Economic Collapse: the Janissary Example
Anne Ruskiewicz, Associate Professor of History and Geography, Sullivan County Community College
Voices from the Past: Ancient Perspectives on a Modern Crisis
Dustin Rollins, Northern Essex Community College
Economic Impacts
Examining the U.S. Labor Market during the Great Recession
Satarupa Das, Associate Professor of Economics, Montgomery College
Finance is Killing Us…Literally
Ted Schmidt, Associate Professor of Economics & Finance, SUNY Buffalo State
The Economy and Mental Health
America's Financial Dysfunction: Addiction to Debt
Michael J. Confusione, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Suffolk County Community College
Personal Economic Crisis: Impact on Self View, Identity and Personality
Sherry Ramberg & Chasity Hamilton, Northern Virginia Community College, Loudoun Campus
Impacts on Health, Human Development and Psychological Well-Being
Long-term Impacts of Economic Collapse: Effects on Health, Human Development
and Overall Quality of Life
Rosalyn King, Professor of Psychology and Students: Shriti Bhadel, Carmen Carnejo,
Baffour Agyeman-Duah, Nilofar Moayyer,
Northern Virginia Community College, Loudoun Campus
Family Dimensions
Family Matters
Omar Simpson, Rutgers University
The Effect of the Economic Recession on Violence in the Family
Brandi Sutherland, Crisis Services
Social Justice
Spatial Justice in the City: Isolation of the South Salina Neighborhood of Syracuse, NY
John H. Giles Jr., Syracuse University
Social Justice for Equality in Nepal
Hariom Timilsina, Nepal Bar Association
Geo-Political Ramifications of the Economic Crisis in Russia
Elizabeth Wilcoxson, Former Division Dean and Adjunct Professor, Northern Essex Community College
Urban Planning and Technology
Forever Auto: Transportation Joins the Smart Grid
Monica Mallini and Students: Melanie Feliciano, Micah Poole, Gannon Haun, Brandon Hayes & Jason Bailey
Northern Virginia Community College, Manassas Campus
Social and Economic Recovery for Western NY via Renewable Energy
David Bradley and Derek Bateman, Buffalo Wind Action Group/Erie Community College
Technical Crisis, Technical Solution
Techno-Politics and the Current Economic Collapse
Bruce Cosby, Erie Community College
Smart Town: an Urban Autonomous Transportation Test Bed
Monica Mallini and Students: Melanie Feliciano, Micah Poole, Gannon Haun, Brandon Hayes & Jason Bailey
Northern Virginia Community College, Manassas Campus
Role of Higher Educational Institutions
The Leadership Role of Community Colleges: A Strategic Approach to Institutional
Effectiveness and Optimization of Students' Learning Outcomes
Limsy Chan, Lecturer, Business and Law, Schenectady County Community College
Teaching Basic Economic Literacy
Marianne Partee, Professor, Social Science, Erie Community College
Professional Development
Fulbright Fellowships for Community College Faculty
John Holian, Professor Emeritus and Fulbright Scholar, Cuyahoga Community College
Generational Economics, Global Diets
Boomer Economics: The Concerns of an Aging Nation
Susan Mason, Professor of Psychology & Gerontology and Students:Lindsay Nersinger,
Krysten Kunzwiler, Chelsea King
Niagara University
Global Economics, Food Systems, and the Staple Diet: Mama, What’s for Dinner?
Mary Altair, Assistant Professor of Social Science and Students: Andrew Stanek and Keri Marotta
Erie Community College
For more information on the 2011 ECCSSA conference, please contact:
Dr. Gene Grabiner, Conference Chair, Erie Community College at: grabiner@ecc.edu or (716) 851-1089
Dr. Rosalyn M. King, Chair, Board of Trustees at: roking@nvcc.edu or (703) 450-2629
“The National and Global Impacts of Economic Collapse:
Perspectives from the Social Sciences”
March 31-April 2, 2011
State University of New York
121 Ellicott Street,
Buffalo, New York, 14203
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