Religion & Ethics Newsweekly

Elizabeth Dodson Gray appeared on 16th November edition of Religion and Ethics Newsweekly, examining the impact of Michelangelo's painting of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel on the occasion of its 500th anniversary. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/episodes/november-16-2012/sistine-chapel-anniversary/13864/  has the video and a transcript, and  http://video.pbs.org/video/2306296223 is the whole show which includes unrelated topics. The way the program has been edited it appears as if everyone is having a conversation together.

Letter from Tracey Hurd

— Sunday 24th June 2012
Dear Friends,
I hope this note finds you enjoying the summer!  Though our WomenExplore Lecture and Discussion Forum series ended in May, we have been very busy. I want to share some good news, update you on our spring work, and let you know about some transitions, including my decision to resign as Executive Director and move to a new role in WomenExplore.

There is much good news to share.  Just this week WomenExplore Lecture and Discussion Forum was named a 2012 Top Women’s Empowerment Nonprofit Organization by GreatNonprofits.org.  We are so honored!  Thank you to those who nominated us and wrote the reviews that resulted in this recognition. 

This month, we welcomed Clark University junior, Maya Allen, as our summer marketing intern.  She is pursuing a degree in Management with an interest in Social Entrepreneurship.  Maya is creating a series of flyers for our series and contributing to other marketing efforts.  We are thrilled to have her with us; she will be studying abroad in London in the fall.  You can see a photo of Maya on our WomenExplore facebook page.

The construction and composition of our Spring 2013 series, What Does This “Wild and Precious Life” Demand of Us?  is well underway.  We wove the words of Mary Oliver into our series title and one of the session titles.  Take a peek at www.womenexplore.org for more about the series so far and for news about upcoming planning meetings.  We would love to have you there!

The fall series, Living with Secrets and Lies, awaits us with promise.  This fall there will be some changes!  We will gather at our new time 11:30 am – 1:30 pm for the Forum, with 10:00 am – 11:00 as the meeting time of the open community support and discussion group.  

In May I gave my notice to WomenExplore and my time as Executive Director will close at the end of July.  I will return to my work as a psychologist, going back to school to gain clinical training that will complement my doctorate in developmental psychology. 

I have loved you all and being part of the WomenExplore/TOP community. 

I will miss being the director, but I am completely confident about the future of WomenExplore!  Work is underway to ensure that there is a smooth transition during the steps that will lead to finding a new director.   I am delighted to remain among you in a new way, as I shepherd some promising, almost-finalized initiatives linking our regular WomenExplore forums with Continuing Education Units (CEUs) and graduate course status.   I am happy to have this responsibility in my new role as Resident Scholar, WomenExplore Lecture & Discussion Forum.  Emmy Robertson will also serve as Resident Scholar, collaborating on these efforts and serving with me as co- faculty for the course (which is pending final Lesley University approval).

I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to have served as your director and to be in the midst of such wonderful, intelligent, intuitive, and inspiring people.  You make WomenExplore the treasure it is.  I look forward to seeing you in the fall, supporting the next steps of WomenExplore, and being part of the unfolding story that we are writing together.

With love and best summer wishes,

Tracey

Tracey L. Hurd, Ph.D.

Executive Director

WomenExplore Lecture & Discussion Forum

formerly the Theological Opportunities Program

Feeling at Home During My Life’s Journey

— Talk by Emmy K. Robertson, 10th May 2012

Feeling at home during my life’s journey has certainly been helped in recent years by being a member of WomenExplore. Finding a spiritual home with women who identify themselves as feminists is so deeply satisfying that it can actually bring tears to my eyes. Feeling at home means being understood for who one is without pretense or artifice. What a blessing all of you are to me. How thankful I am to be able to be a part of this organization. I am at home here.

But, feeling at home? Hmm, do I? Have I always felt at home? What does this mean? I sat down to write about this with some consternation , but also with a smile and some humor. Feeling at home is so basic to me that  it may be hard to delve into.

My childhood was divided into two parts based on where I lived. The first seven years were spent in a little house where I had to share a room with my sister who was disapproving and hostile towards me. We had an invisible line drawn the center of our room. Either of us could do whatever we wished while on our side of the line, but must abide by the other’s rules when we were on her side. I had to cross Sue’s side of the room to get in or out. However, this house was located on a block where over 100 kids lived, so the possibilities of playing outside were endless and fun. At the end of first grade we moved about a mile away into a new house where Sue and I each had our own rooms, but where there were at the most three kids in the neighborhood my age to play with.

Life was difficult in the new house. Looking back I know that my mother had bi-polar disease and was coping as best she could, however, the reality of daily life could be quite grim. Because I now had my own room, I could retreat there whenever I wished and I had an active private life where I felt right at home.

When I have spoken to this group in the past I have shared the incredible experience I had while still in the crib under the age of three. It was an experience of feeling a oneness with the universe and of knowing God’s endless love. I did not have words to express this experience until I was in my 30s, but I lived it each day of my childhood. We have gotten to hear Liz Dodson-Gray and Jadzia Allison recount almost identical childhood experiences which is a tantalizing subject all in itself, but not for today. Anyway, this experience provided me with a deep and very private mental and spiritual life.

 I had had childhood allergies and many many rashes which were treated with an ointment that came in a cobalt blue jar, so early on I would look at cobalt blue glass and be comforted. Any of you who have been in my home know that I have cobalt blue glass pieces in my kitchen window. I look at them every day, sometimes many times a day and I am at peace.

Once I turned 18 I left home to go to school and began a nomadic life of moving, getting familiar with my surroundings and then moving on once again. However, I knew that no matter how strange the place I was setting up housekeeping in was, it would soon feel like home to me because I also knew that the words, ‘home is where the heart is’ were literally true, and my heart was always with me no matter where I was. I had my oneness with the universe memory, my cobalt blue glass and my private interior life. They were always with me providing comfort and strength to me when I needed it.

Somewhere along the way I came to believe that God wants us (me) to continue learning and changing all of our (my) lives. I had some clear examples of this in my beloved grandmother and in Mrs Gerlinger whom I admired tremendously and for whose children I babysat for several times a week throughout my teen years. Both of these role models gave me wonderful advice and examples of how to live successful, productive lives, but unfortunately for both of them they felt that their best years had been lived while they were in college. Observing this taught me that I must never lock in, I must never think that sometime in my past had been my best time. I have really taken this to heart and I still believe that it is the fascinating possibilities of today and tomorrow that are if interest and not what has transpired in the past.

Besides looking at cobalt blue glass everyday, there are some other things that I endeavor to keep in my daily life that help me feel at home and grounded as time moves on. Friends who have known me for a long time always laugh when they first visit me in a new home. The reason for that is that the kitchen is always white and there are always the cobalt blue accents. I love order and while my drawers and cupboards may not be as organized  as they might be, the rooms in which I live are most always free from clutter and disorder. It is very important to me to live this way and I will feel uneasy and nervous if I cannot maintain that order. I also need a place in my home surroundings where I can rest my eye and relax my focus.

Having a flower garden is also very important to me in making me feel at home where ever I live. I love color. I love the intense colors found in flowers because  they remind me that nothing lasts forever, that life is always changing and that I need to make time to enjoy what is around me in the present. 

Although it is not possible to have fresh flowers in my yard or in my house at all times, it is possible for me to enjoy intense colors at any time by using a kaleidoscope. I received my first kaleidoscope when I was very young and looking through it calms me and makes me remember the peace that is to be found in solitude. 

Enough of the material possessions and surroundings! While they are crucial to my sense of feeling at home where ever I am living, they are not the most important criteria.

I need my friends, family and husband to also make me feel at home. I need daily interactions with other people and this has been an issue for me thorough out my lifetime. I need the give and take, I need the untidiness of other people’s opinions and behavior to really feel a sense of being at home. I need  messiness within boundaries, I need chaos that can be stilled. I need the unexpectedness of someone else's needs and demands. At different times in my lifetime this has been hard for me to achieve as I don’t find that people seek me out. The phone doesn’t ring  much in my house. I am the one who most often needs to reach out and make contact. I do not know why this is so, but it is. This is a great regret of mine because I can become very isolated if I don’t take the initiative to reach out.

I was thrilled when Sunday Conversations needed a new home and I could volunteer my house. Having those of you who attend Sunday Conversations actually come into my home and feel comfortable and secure is a tremendous gift for me. I thank each and everyone of you.

As an artist I have to work alone. I could not produce any work if I weren’t alone, but then I suffer from being isolated and long for companionship. It’s the ying and the yang and I have a very hard time finding balance.

To somewhat compensate for this ease in becoming isolated, I like to have a dog living with me, too. This has not always been possible when I was in the workforce, but it happily has been the case for the past 17 years. A dog is a great companion in its sloppy, demanding way. Much can be said for this pet whose very nature is to create messiness and chaos. It is very calming for me to attend to those demanding needs and to be rewarded by a wagging tail.

Finally living with the ‘right’ person, namely, my husband, Mike, has validated my sense of feeling at home because Mike also likes to live in an orderly house full of visual stimulation and calming order. This style of living has not come naturally to Mike as his  inclination is toward hoarding and chaos. I am barely able to enter his office at church because of its clutter. However, we have been able to come together in agreement and willingness to keep a serene environment for me to flourish in. I think this is possible because Mike knows that living within my parameters is so key for my psyche that it simply would not be possible for us to be together were our home any different than it is.

Finding my center as I grow older is a challenge these days. I am still recovering from being way too busy, but at the same time I berate myself for not doing more with my art such as entering shows and writing a book about it, let alone creating a web site. I am often my own worst enemy because I guilt trip myself about things I don’t really want to do. I am restless these days, more so than I have been for some time, but I will tough it out and see what happens.

The Power of Voices from Our Past: Haunting...Inhibiting...Liberating?

—Talk by Charlene Brotman, 15th March 2012


My story is about the power of two voices from my past. One voice is liberating. It came late in my life in the form of old, forgotten letters. It came too late to help liberate my sister, Jeanne.

The other voice I will tell you about was an inhibiting voice. No. “Inhibiting” is too mild a word. I would say “crippling” is the word for this voice. The crippling power of a voice from the past.

But first, you need to know about my brother, Charles, because, as I discovered, he is intertwined with both of these voices from my past. Actually, it is his death that is intertwined. I never knew my brother. He died of a burst appendix at the age of ten, just three months before I was born. It was 1929, before antibiotics.

I grew up somehow knowing that Charles was a most perfect child, and even though I was named “Charlene” after him, I knew in my heart I could never, ever hope to be as good a child as Charles.

One day when I was little – at an age where kids take everything literally – I heard my mother tell someone, “We lost our son.” “No, mama,” I said, tugging at her arm, “We didn’t lose Charles, he died.” Right away, I could see from the faces of all the grownups that I had been very bad to say this thing. That’s why my memory of it is so vivid.

 I learned we never talk about Charles in our family. But one time, when I was grown, my mother broke the silence around his death. She said to me,  “I could not bear to be around Jeanne after Charles left us, because she kept pretending that she was playing games with him, and she carried on make-believe conversations with him. I know she was only three, but it wrenched my heart every time Jeanne said Charles’ name. I couldn’t stand to hear her talk to him. I didn’t want to live. I figured my mother could raise Jeanne. And the new baby.”

For years after Charles’ death, my mother was so ill that they had to hire live-in help. I don’t know how long she rejected Jeanne. Or maybe she never completely stopped rejecting Jeanne.

So I grew up with a shadow brother, an older sister, Jeanne, and a younger sister, Nancy. A peculiar dynamic played out between the three of us girls. Jeanne and I were expected to be – no,we were trained to be -- subordinate to the youngest daughter.

There was nothing subtle about the ways we were taught to allow Nancy to dominate us. Jeanne remembered how as a girl, she desperately wanted a subscription to the magazine, The American Girl. Mother promised her a subscription if she would not fight with Nancy for a whole year. This meant, of course, giving in to Nancy, letting her always have her own way. Jeanne won her subscription. Nancy won entitlement.
   
Nancy’s entitled position in the family meant that I was often stuck with doing her chores, as well as mine. One day when I was a young teenager, I staged a mini-rebellion. It was the day we were moving for the summer from our house in Wichita to our farmhouse in the country.

Our car was jam-packed with summer clothes, bedding and food supplies. Nancy and I were squeezed into the back seat between stacks of bundles and boxes. Our job was to unload the car together. I anticipated that she would disappear as soon as we pulled up to the farm, but I had a plan. I unloaded half the car, exactly straight down the middle. Then I announced, “There! I’ve done my half. That’s it! I’m not doing Nancy’s work for her anymore!”

My father glared at me. “Stop worrying about what others should be doing,”  “Stop being a complainer! Get that car unloaded! NOW!”

 He took a step towards me. In silence I unloaded the other half of the car. I was afraid of my father.

There was no use appealing to my mother. She never questioned his authority, or allowed us to.

Things turned ugly with Nancy when the time came for the three of us sisters to divide up the possessions of our parents after they died. The inheritance brought out in Nancy a fierce, win-at-any-cost competitiveness, driving her to deceptions we had never seen in her before. It was like the inheritance had made her crazy. We couldn’t figure out why. At this stage in our married lives, she already possessed far more than Jeanne or me.

We began by dividing up mother’s jewelry. I spread all of it out on the bed before us. The one piece we all longed for was mother’s opal ring that flashed milky pink and turquoise and green. Nancy proceeded to take the ring, and made her other choices. Then I started choosing, but my hand stopped in midair as a realization flashed over me.

 “Wait a minute! Hold on! We’re doing here what we’ve done all our lives growing up. Nancy takes first what she wants, then I take what I want, we leave the rest to Jeanne. That’s not fair! We have to come up with a different way of dividing mother’s jewelry!”

I averted my eyes from Jeanne, thinking how all these years I had colluded in this hierarchy of privilege, leaving the last choices, the crumbs, to Jeanne. And always knowing she would let me do that and continue to love me. It had all seemed just the way things were supposed to be. It had seemed that way to all three of us.

I wish I could report to you that my “a-hah!” moment changed everything. I wish I could say Jeanne and I firmly, calmly, resolutely stood our ground. But Nancy exploded into such a vitriolic rage that Jeanne and I shrank back. Nancy walked away with the opal ring and the first choices.

How could Jeanne and I have caved in like that? We were grown women with our own families. My father was dead. He couldn’t hit me.  But such was the power of this voice from our past, this voice that crippled both Jeanne and me.

Sometimes I rerun the scene in my mind, only I give it the right ending, the way it should have ended, the way I would be able to do it now.

I could do it differently, now, and for that I shall be forever grateful to the women’s movement and gifted therapists. That changed how I do my life and how I see myself.

But now I want to tell you about a liberating voice from my past, a voice that revealed the reason for the skewed relationship between Jeanne, Nancy and me.

A year or so ago, Jeanne’s daughter Debbie called me. “Aunt Charlene, I found a bunch of old letters in the secret drawer of Grandma’s cherry wood secretary.  They’re letters between her and a psychic in Buffalo. Shall I send them on to you?”

I leafed through the yellowing pages. Some were copies of desperate questions my mother had written to a psychic after Charles had died. My heart ached for my mother as I read them:

 “Does our son who died in September know about the baby . . . and does he understand now why I was so cross all summer? Is he pleased with her name? Will we ever have another boy? Is he alive and contented there? Does he feel like we did all we could to keep him with us? Will we ever understand why he was taken?”

The psychic, whom everyone called Aunt Lucy, wrote back: “There is perfect happiness with your little boy. He wants you to know there is no stomachache now. Charles said I am to tell you not to cry any more. He tells me he comes home so much . . . I am to know that he has a good mother and she was not cross to him. (That last part was underlined.)

“Your child is alive and happy for he is being loved and cared for by Spirit people. He knows about baby and says her eyes are not like his. He seemed a little puzzled about the name, for he said baby has someone else’s name. Yes, Charles will have a brother someday, also another sister added to what he now has. You will know and be with your son someday, but God has work for you both to do on earth in caring for other jewels he is giving you.”

There were letters from cousin Gussie, too. She lived in the same town as the psychic and regularly attended séances for messages from her deceased mother. Gussie reported that sometimes Charles also spoke in those séances, and she faithfully recorded his every word for my mother.

I learned from cousin Gussie’s letters that my parents were bitterly disappointed when I was born, because I was not a boy to take Charles’ place. To their credit, they never told me I should have been a boy.

The last of the letters was written about eight months after my younger sister, Nancy, was born. The message from Charles was about Nancy. “Tell my mama my little sister is more like a boy than a girl. They wanted a boy. She is more like me.”

So there it was! The word from the spirit world that my parents believed in: Nancy was more like a boy than a girl. Nancy was like Charles. I wasn’t. Charles had said so, himself. He had said my eyes were not like his, and I had someone else’s name.

Now I understand. My parents had bestowed male privilege and male entitlement upon Nancy, just as my father had ruled the family with male privilege and male entitlement. There never was another son, but there was Nancy to take his place, to be raised as the longed-for son.

I wish I could have shared this revelation with Jeanne, but she died of Parkinson’s disease before the voice in the letters surfaced.

I picture my mother reading and rereading Aunt Lucy’s comforting words. I, myself, do not believe in messages from the dead. I suspect Aunt Lucy picked up plenty of clues from cousin Gussie. What matters is what my parents believed, and how that shaped our family.

That is the story of two powerful voices from my past: one voice that crippled, one voice that liberated with the truth behind the complexities of my family.

Reflections on Change: Writing the Narrative of Who We Are Now

by Tracey L. Hurd
Executive Director

“The past, present, and future walk into a bar.  It was tense.”

This season’s theme, Change as a Constant:  Adapting, Surviving, Thriving seems linked to the above joke, which circulated widely via facebook circles last week.  Change can be difficult, in part, because it precipitates our active wrestling with our past, present, and future all at once.  It’s a price we pay for being our own keepers of time. 

Mary Catherine Bateson offered many ideas about change when she spoke to WomenExplore Lecture and Discussion Forum.  In the mix of her time with us she said that here in the United States we tell older people to “go play” or “have fun.”  She mused about how this message chafes against the messages of productivity that have guided our lives up until that point.  We are people that feel compelled to be productive, to contribute, to be at least part of the action, if not essential.  “Go play,” can feels more like “get out of the way” than an invitation for fun. It can feel like a message that says, “you are no longer useful or essential,” and Mary Catherine encouraged us to challenge that message.  Speak up and out on issues, she said.   And to listen to others-- then our words are more likely to be heard since they will then be part of the discussion.  Sarah Roche-Mahdi of CODEPINK, also implored us to speak out, particularly for peace.  She modeled the freedom that can come by standing authentically with one’s values.  “Not everyone likes us,” she said, “but we stand firmly for peace.”

And what does this mean for women?  Many of us have been caretakers, with lives marked by the lives of others.  Struggles, milestones, transitions of others have been as essential to our beings as our own.  Speaking out has been something practiced on behalf of others- to support our children or other loved ones.  For generations, women have bracketed their lives not only by their own past, present, and future visions, but also by those that they hold and keep for others.  It’s a continual dance of interdependence, adapting to changes, surviving as necessary and thriving in turn.

Mary Catherine Bateson challenges women.  She calls for women to choose authorship of their own lives.  Relationships are key, but only an individual woman can compose her own life.  The past is with us and the future is upon us, but in the moment of now, we write the narrative of who we are.  This means giving ourselves permission to summon the past scripts for how we are supposed to be, and making conscious choices to either use them or throw them out.  To the woman who says that she is so mired with an identity that is serious and informed that she wishes she could turn off NPR and do something more frivolous, Mary Catherine Bateson says, “go ahead-- make that choice.  You can choose to play.”  To the woman who wants her good ideas heard, but feels marginal and ignored, she says, “meet others where they are, listen, and then engage in conversation.  Other will be ready to listen to you then.”  Composing a life is about paying attention to the past, present and future at once.  Change is inevitable, but how one adapts, survives, and thrives can be shaped by our individual authorship.  And as Mary Catherine Bateson says, “it [composing a life] is something any woman can do.”

Women Matter: International Women’s Day, Spring 2012’s Opening

By Tracey L. Hurd, Executive Director

We celebrate the start of our Spring 2012 series in just a few days. We will consider the topic, “Women’s Alternatives to Competition and Aggression,’ through film, prepared reflection, and discussion.  Sarah Roche-Mahdi will bring her history as a scholar, writer, feminist, and activist to reflection about her engagement with CODEPINK (originally called Code Pink Women for Peace).  We will view a portion of Anne Macksoud’s film, “Missing Peace:  Women of Faith and the Failure of War.”  And we will discuss together the question, “How do women deal with competition and aggression?  What strengths do women—in all their diversities—bring to these issues?”  We will name women as a focal point to our explorations and see how that opens doors to new understandings.    

We open our spring series on, March 8^th, which is International Women’s Day.  Though individually and as a group we have honored International Women’s Day in many ways, 2012 is the first year that we do so with our official name, WomenExplore Lecture and Discussion Forum.  This matters.  To name is to attribute significance.  Women matter and our name, WomenExplore, makes a focus on women visible.

International Women’s Day was marked for the first time in 1911 on March 19^th in Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland. It was tied to political movements.  In 1975 the United Nations began celebrating March 8^th as International Women's Day and two years later (1977), the General Assembly adopted a resolution proclaiming a United Nations Day for Women's Rights and International Peace to be observed by Member States. 

Writers from the United Nations website ask:  “Why dedicate a day exclusively to the celebration of the world's women?”  They answer, “ In adopting the resolution on the observance of Women's Day, the General Assembly cites two reasons: to recognize the fact that securing peace and social progress and the full enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms require the active participation, equality and development of women; and to acknowledge the contribution of women to the strengthening of international peace and security.”

Just months ago, President Barack Obama and Secretary Hilary Clinton issued the US National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security.  It has many specific points about the importance of strategic continued attention to women.  They wrote:  “The goal is as simple as it is profound:  to empower half the world’s population as equal partners in preventing conflict and building peace in countries threatened and affected by war, violence and insecurity.  Achieving this goal is critical to our national and global security.” (Department of State, December 19, 2011)

Women matter.  Many gains have been made both by and for women.  Globally, International Women’s Day gives nations permission and encouragement to pause to consider “half the world’s population.”  WomenExplore gives all who participate similar license.  But we go one step further.  WomenExplore, as it was in TOP before, embodies the message that women hold great promise for the transformation of the world.  In our sessions, processes and mission we say:  Listen to women, let their words and lives speak.  Together we can understand and heal this world, always moving towards our better visions of it.   We both start and celebrate this on March 8^th, at 10 am at University Lutheran Church…there’s a great session, a small reception, and a seat for you.  See you there!

Spring 2012 WomenExplore: Join the Unfolding Story

By Tracey L. Hurd, Executive Director

The image of life as a narrative or a book unfurled captures me.  There is something comforting about envisioning us all as players in a grand unfolding, mutually held together by the weight of a solid book’s binding.  There’s progression, yes, a moving forward, but the option to go back – to return to page three—is ever-present, too.  Life as an unfolding story gently suggests a metaphor of life as change happening without true loss. 

Change as a Constant:  Adapting, Surviving, Thriving is the theme for the upcoming Spring 2012 Lecture and Discussion Forum series.  It’s the first full series that we will launch with our new name, WomenExplore Lecture and Discussion Forum.  It is a lyrical but unplanned coincidence: two changes at once.  The new series name provides a larger umbrella for the variety of topics that anchor our sessions and it names a focus on women that has been part of the program from its inception.  WomenExplore signals our progression, but the pages of the Theological Opportunities Program are held dear and intact.  We are one story.

I joined this narrative of change and continuity as Executive Director on the first of February.  Muna Killingback left for full time work at U. Mass, Boston, in the late fall.  Sitting on the board of WomenExplore, she maintains her close ties with this community and program.  I come here after years in primarily academic settings—as a former Scholar at the Brandeis Women’s Studies Center, program director at the Unitarian Universalist Association, and faculty member at Boston College.    The dual commitment to learning broadly about issues in the world today, and deep thinking about how those issues touch our own lives, drew me in.  I attended a session with a friend, and came back again and again.  I am honored to be part of a program that is so full of possibility and transformation. 

This spring’s line up is stunning.  There will be excellent lectures from leaders in fields presenting cutting-edge research that wrestle with chaos, journey, clutter, sensuality, grief, home, competition, partnering, aloneness and growth.  There will be shorter focusing presentations preceding the lectures, where we will learn about how these topics have taken shape in lived experiences of a participant of the WomenExplore community.  The focusing presentations and lectures, together offer synergy and tension.  Time for engagement, discussion and questions is therefore an essential part of each morning.

So much awaits us.  Come!  Bring a friend.   We have a truly wonderful spring series.  It will be interesting and engaging, and better with you there.  There is a place for you in the unfolding story of WomenExplore’s Lecture Series and Discussion Forum.