UW-Eau Claire professors will share their knowledge of humanity Monday and Tuesday when Student Senate sponsors the Third Annual Human Rights Day Awareness Conference.
The theme will be “Issues of Peace.”
“We actually started forming this conference shortly after Sept. 11, so that was greatly in our minds when we picked this topic,” said Sandra Boone, Equality Resource Center co-chairperson.
In previous years, the conference brought together human rights experts from across the nation, she said.
“Our goal this year was to show what we have here, the knowledge that our professors and staff already have,” Boone said.
An example is Rose-Marie Avin, professor of economics.
Her presentation, “Peace and Economic Development: A Feminist Perspective,” will be at 12:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Menominee Room of Davies Center.
Avin will examine how the choices Third World countries make between spending on the military and spending to alleviate social problems have affected women.
“What I’m trying to say is that the more resources that are spent on education, the better off women are and the better off the children in that society are going to be,” Avin said.
“So there are not only benefits for women, but for society in general in the long run.”
A. David Gordon, professor and department chair of communication and journalism, has done research on racism and multi-culturalism.
He will be part of a panel discussion at 2 p.m. Monday in Schofield Auditorium,
A concern he will bring to the panel is how the media have covered the Middle East.
“One of the criticisms that’s been levied at the media over the decades is this notion of ‘parachute journalism’ – you get somebody and parachute them into a place where there’s all sorts of stuff going on, and they have very little background,” he said.
“They cover that and they leave. Some of them are outstanding and some of them are relatively uninformed,” Gordon said.
Being informed is not only necessary for good media, but for good citizenship, he said.
For more program information, contact Erin Brandt in the Student Senate office, 836-4646.
