Former UM undergraduate student and current UM professor Brian Arbic will describe his experience as a United States Peace Corps volunteer teacher in Liberia and Ghana, West Africa.

The persistent Black/White achievement gap in Education has been a source of concern for many years. Although many other factors contribute to it, one that has not attracted sufficient attention is the African American Vernacular English [AAVE] spoken by many African American students, and more importantly, the negative responses of teachers and administrators to it.

Peter Brantley discusses the wild and chaotic publishing environment of today, and why actions of publishers are rational, even as they threaten to destroy traditional models of library book lending.

Puzzles have existed since the dawn of history. From riddles and anagrams to today’s Rubik’s Cubes, sudoku, and TV game shows, it seems that humans have engaged in this sort of activity since they became conscious beings. Why? This talk looks at the origins of puzzles and what they tell us about the human mind and how they relate to discoveries in language mathematics, and philosophy. It would seem that we possess a “puzzle instinct” that guides us in our overall search for meaning to life.