President's Speakers Series
Spokane Community College

Previous Speakers


October 2014

John Marshall presents "In Our Own Backyard: Fires and Forests in Eastern Washington"

The Spokane Community College President's Speaker Series kicks off with photographer John Marshall on October 6.

The presentation, "In Our Own Backyard: Fires and Forests in Eastern Washington" will begin at 7 PM in the SCC Lair Auditorium, 1810 N. Greene St., Spokane. It is free and open to the public.

In 1994, Marshall began an extensive photographic landscape study to follow what happens to forests following fires. Marshall's interest in forest fires began in childhood while picking huckleberries at old burn sites on Mt. Hood. The son of a wildlife biologist, he came to understand at an early age that wildfires were important to wildlife. Marshall has a bachelor's degree in fishery science from Oregon State University and a master's degree in wildlife resources from the University of Idaho. Marshall began his career as a photographer with the eruption of Mount St. Helens, which he photographed for National Geographic magazine. He frequently provides photography on contract for the U.S. Forest Service and the Nature Conservancy of Washington.

The presentation will include photos showing areas burned in the Carlton Complex this summer, the largest fire in Washington State history.

Marshall will also give a presentation for students October 7 at 9:30 AM at the Hagan Foundation Center for the Humanities.

YouTube Video:
» Part 1
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» Part 2
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April 2014

Deborah Amos
National Public Radio's Middle East Reporter


Amos travels extensively across the Middle East, providing a range of in-depth reports on NPR's "Morning Edition," "All Things Considered" and "Weekend Edition." She has received a 2010 Edward R. Murrow Life Time Achievement Award and 2009 Edward Weintal Prize for Diplomatic Reporting from Georgetown University. She also was part of a team of reporters who won a 2004 Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia Award for coverage of Iraq.

In addition to her work on NPR, Amos spent a decade in television news, including ABC’s "Nightline" and "World News Tonight" and the Public Broadcasting System's "NOW with Bill Moyers" and "Frontline." She also is the author of Eclipse of the Sunnis: Power, Exile and Upheaval in the Middle East and Lines in the Sand: Desert Storm and the Remaking of the Arab World.

For information, contact David Stasney, SCC environmental sciences instructor, 533-7278, or Mary Carr, executive director, Community Colleges of Spokane Library Services, 533-7045 or 533-8202.

Flash video:
» Deborah Amos
(video link)


November 2013

Barry Lopez

Barry Lopez appeared Thursday, November 21, 2013 in the Hagan Center for a student-led Q & A at 10:30am.

Instructors were encouraged to bring their classes to hear Lopez speak, and we offered a couple good resources to introduce him and his writing.

A short youtube video will give students an overview of his interests and personality: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hY6XMIGkohA

Additionally, we provided copies of two essays from Lopez's book, About This Life: "The American Geographies" and "A Passage of Hands." These essays are short and accessible.


April 2013

Christopher McDougall - Author

Christopher McDougall
Author of Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Spokane Community College
1810 N. Greene Street
Spokane, Washington  99217
Information Line: (509) 533-7042

These events were free and open to the public.


When Christopher McDougall talks about running, he's not talking about a jog around the block. He believes human beings evolved to run hundreds of miles at a time, because it was "the way we survived and thrived and spread across the planet." We were born to run, and without all the fancy footwear we've been led to believe is necessary. This argument is the foundation of his book, Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen (Vintage, 2009), which spent over four months on the New York Times Best Seller List. You can read more about Chris McDougall by following this link: http://outreach.ewu.edu/getlit/3254

Flash video:
» Part 1
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Special thanks to SCC President's Speakers Series supporters:

Get Lit!Get Lit!

March 2013

Shaifali Puri - Executive Director, Scientists Without Borders

Shaifali Puri
Executive Director, Scientists Without Borders

"Mobilizing Science, Improving Lives"

Student Session   » More information...
Wednesday, March 13, 2013 at 9:30 and 10:30 AM
Hagan Foundation Center for the Humanities (Library, Second Floor)
Learning Resource Center (Building 16)
Spokane Community College

Both of these events were free and open to the public.

Shaifali Puri is the Executive Director of Scientists Without Borders, a global partnership that aims to improve the quality of life in the developing world by linking, mobilizing and coordinating science-based activities, initiatives and resources.

With a law degree from Stanford and a bachelor’s from Princeton, Puri could be making millions as a corporate attorney. Instead she works to solve the biggest health problems plaguing the developing world. She was recruited two years ago to reinvent Scientists Without Borders, a flailing social networking site for scientists conceived by the New York Academy of Sciences and the United Nations Millennium Project. Since then, she has raised $1.5 million from major corporate donors to create a platform that offers prize money to scientists who find the best solutions to specific health problems.

Scientists Without Borders already has a user community of 4,000 scientists. In 2011, Scientists Without Borders was named a global finalist for the Katerva Award, which recognizes the world’s most promising sustainability initiatives. Pragmatically, Scientists Without Borders posts challenges on their website to aggregate open innovation from average people – because that’s who they are – average people addressing global issues.

Prior to being named Executive Director of Scientists Without Borders, Puri served as Assistant Solicitor General for the State of New York, and Senior Advisor to the President and Chief Operating Officer of the Empire State Development Corporation, the economic and development arm of the State of New York.

Her writing has been featured in publications including Fortune Magazine, The New York Times, World Policy Journal and Slate. Puri is a frequent speaker and moderator at conferences throughout the country and was recently awarded a Pipeline Fellowship, which trains women philanthropists to become angel investors through education, mentoring, and practice.

Flash video:
» Part 1
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» Part 2
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April 2012

Keith Boykin - TV host, author, and speaker

Keith Boykin
TV host, author, and speaker

"Race, Gender and Presidential Politics"

Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - 7:00 PM
Lair-Student Center Auditorium (Building 6)
Spokane Community College
1810 N. Greene Street
Spokane, Washington  99217
Information Line: (509) 533-7042

Student Session   » More information...
Thursday, April 12, 2012 at 9:30 AM
Hagan Foundation Center for the Humanities (Library, Second Floor)
Learning Resource Center (Building 16)
Spokane Community College

Both of these events were free and open to the public.

Keith Boykin is the editor of The Daily Voice online news site, a CNBC contributor, a BET TV host, and a New York Times best-selling author of four books.

Educated at Dartmouth and Harvard, Boykin attended law school with President Barak Obama and served in the White House as a special assistant to President Bill Clinton. He has been actively involved in progressive causes since working on his first congressional campaign while still a student in high school. Keith is now a veteran of six political campaigns, including two presidential campaigns, and he was named one of the top instructors when he taught political science at American University in Washington, D.C. A founder and first board president of the National Black Justice Coalition, Keith has spoken to audiences large and small throughout the world. He delivered a landmark speech to over 200,000 people at the Millennium March on Washington.

Boykin has traveled extensively across four continents, and in 1997 President Clinton appointed him - along with Coretta Scott King and Reverend Jesse Jackson - to the U.S. presidential trade delegation to Zimbabwe. He was a star on the 2004 Showtime television series American Candidate, and an associate producer of the 2007 feature film Dirty Laundry. Keith has appeared on numerous national media programs, including Anderson Cooper 360°, The O'Reilly Factor, The Tyra Banks Show, and many others.

Boykin has written four books, including One More River to Cross (taught in colleges and universities throughout the country); Respecting the Soul(winner of the Lambda Literary Award); Beyond the Down Low: Sex, Lies and Denial in Black America; and most recently, For Colored Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Still Not Enough: Personal Writing about Confronting Life's Obstacles and Believing in Yourself, released March 13, 2012.

Flash video:
» Part 1
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» Part 2
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February 2012

Suzanne Petroni, Ph.D. - Vice President for Global Health, Public Health Institute

Suzanne Petroni, Ph.D.
Vice President for Global Health, Public Health Institute

"Living in a World of Seven Billion"

The United Nations estimates that more than seven billion people call Earth home, with the global population increasing by more than 80 million people each year.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012 - 7:00 PM
Lair-Student Center Auditorium (Building 6)
Spokane Community College
1810 N. Greene Street
Spokane, Washington  99217
Information Line: (509) 533-7042

"A World of Seven Billion: What Does It Mean?"   » More information...
Two one-hour sessions:
Thursday, February 23, 2012 at 9:30-10:20 AM and 10:30-11:20 AM
Hagan Foundation Center for the Humanities (Library, Second Floor)
Learning Resource Center (Building 16)
Spokane Community College

Suzanne Petroni is a respected leader, thinker and speaker on a range of global health issues, including those raised by our ever-increasing global population. As Vice President for Global Health at the Public Health Institute (PHI), Dr. Petroni is responsible for designing and implementing the organization's global health strategic plan and expanding its global health projects. She has worked with several key international organizations to raise and distribute billions of dollars in grants and funding for reproductive rights and global health. Petroni served on Under Secretary Tim Wirth's climate change team during the Kyoto Protocol negotiations in 1997, and as the U.S. government's officer-in-charge for the five-year review of the International Conference on Population and Development.

She has published and presented in a variety of venues on issues related to reproductive health and the linkages between population and climate change. Highlights include a chapter in A Pivotal Moment: Population, Justice and the Environmental Challenge (Island Press, 2009), a project for which she was a key advisor; and "Policy Review: Thoughts on Addressing Population and Climate Change in a Just and Ethical Manner," a groundbreaking article that appeared in Population and Environment, Winter 2009.

Dr. Petroni holds a BA in International Relations from the University of California at Davis; an MS in Foreign Service from Georgetown University; a certificate in Public Health in Complex Emergencies from Columbia University; and a Ph.D. in Gender and Social Policy at the George Washington University.

» View Flash video of this presentation
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November 2011

Sarah Vowell - Author, Historian, Humorist and Superhero
Sarah Vowell - Author, Historian, Humorist and Superhero

"An Evening with Sarah Vowell"
Monday, November 7, 2011
7:00 PM - One-hour reading with commentary
8:00 PM - Thirty minutes of Q&A
8:30 PM - Reception and book-signing
Lair-Student Center Auditorium (Building 6)
Spokane Community College
1810 N. Greene Street
Spokane, Washington  99217

"Discussion with Sarah Vowell: Finding the Superhero Within"   » More information...
9:30-10:30 AM, Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Learning Resource Center (Building 16)
Hagan Foundation Center for the Humanities (Library, Second Floor)
Spokane Community College

Best-selling author and NPR contributor Sarah Vowell came to Spokane Community College! Vowell is the author of five best-selling books including Assassination Vacation and The Wordy Shipmates. Her recent book, Unfamiliar Fishes, is the intriguing history of our 50th state, Hawaii, annexed in 1898. Replete with a cast of beguiling and often tragic characters including an overthrown Hawaiian queen, whalers, missionaries, sugar barons, Teddy Roosevelt, and assorted con men, Unfamiliar Fishes is another history lesson in Americana as only Vowell can tell it - with brainy wit and droll humor.

Vowell has been a contributing editor for Public Radio International's "This American Life" from 1996-2008, where she produced numerous commentaries and documentaries and toured the country in many of the program's live shows. She was one of the original contributors to McSweeney's, also participating in many of the quarterly's readings and shows. She has been a columnist for Salon.com, Time, and San Francisco Weekly and continues to write occasional essays for the opinion page of The New York Times.

You may recognize Ms. Vowell from her many appearances on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and David Letterman's show. She can cause these comedy giants to double up with laughter.


April 2011

Maude Barlow

Maude Barlow, Guest Speaker: The Battle for Blue Gold
7:00 PM, Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Lair Auditorium (Building 6)
Spokane Community College
1810 N. Greene Street
Spokane, Washington  99217

Maude Barlow and Washington's Secretary of State, Sam Reed: The Road to Civic Leadership   » More information...
9:30 AM, Thursday, April 14, 2011
Learning Resource Center (Building 16)
Hagan Foundation Center for the Humanities (Library, Second Floor)
Spokane Community College
1810 N. Greene Street
Spokane, Washington  99217

Information Line: (509) 533-7042

Maude Barlow is an internationally renowned activist and best-selling author in the field of water rights. Her most recent book, Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water (published in eight languages), details how water companies are reaping vast profits from declining supplies, and how ordinary people from around the world have banded together to create a grassroots global water justice movement. Barlow is the national chairperson of The Council of Canadians, the largest citizens' advocacy organization in Canada. She is also the co-founder of the Blue Planet Project, board chairman of the Washington, D.C.-based Food & Water Watch, and executive member of the International Forum on Globalization, and a Councilor with the Hamburg-based World Future Council. She has received ten honorary doctorates, as well as many awards, including the 2005 Right Livelihood Award (known as the "Alternative Nobel") for her global water justice work, the Citation of Lifetime Achievement winner of the 2008 Canadian Environment Awards, and the 2009 Earth Day Canada Outstanding Environmental Achievement Award.

Ms. Barlow's presence was made possible through collaboration with EWU's GetLit! Festival, SCC's Hagan Foundation Center for the Humanities, and the ongoing support of Spokane Community College's Associated Student Government and Student Activities Council.

Mr. Reed's presence was made possible with funding from the "Help America Vote Act" and the Hagan Foundation Center for the Humanities.

» View Flash video of this presentation
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March 2011

Paul G. Lauren, Ph.D.

Paul G. Lauren, Ph.D.
Regents Professor in History, University of Montana

"The Conscience of Mankind: The History and Future of Human Rights"

Public Presentation
followed by Q&A, reception, and book signing
7:00 PM, Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Lair Auditorium (Building 6)
Spokane Community College
1810 N. Greene Street
Spokane, Washington  99217

Student Sessions   » More information...
10:30 and 11:20 AM, Thursday, March 10, 2011
Learning Resource Center (Building 16)
Hagan Foundation Center for the Humanities (Library, Second Floor)
Spokane Community College
1810 N. Greene Street
Spokane, Washington  99217

Information Line: (509) 533-7042

Professor Paul G. Lauren is an accomplished educator with decades of experience working in the field of human rights. He lived and worked in Harlem in the mid-1960s where he was active in the Civil Rights movement and met Martin Luther King, Jr., he traveled behind the Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe and the Bamboo Curtain in Asia during the tense days of the Cold War, and he has worked as an advisor to the United Nations on human rights issues.

Dr. Lauren is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated book The Evolution of International Human Rights: Visions Seen, as well as Force and Statecraft and Power and Prejudice: The Politics and Diplomacy of Racial Discrimination. He is the founding director of the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Center at the University of Montana, and he has been recognized with a myriad of fellowships and awards including Montana's "Professor of the Year" title.

These events were free and open to the public thanks to the generosity of the Associated Student Government and the Student Activities Council at Spokane Community College.

» View Flash video of this presentation
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November 2010

speaker (photo)

Dr. Alexandra Horowitz  

"Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know"

Spokane Community College
1810 N. Greene Street

These events were free and open to the public.
Information Line: (509) 533-7042

Evening Presentation
7:00 PM, Monday, November 8, 2010
Lair Auditorium (Building 6)
Spokane Community College, Spokane, Washington

Daytime Presentation
10:30 AM, Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Building 16, Learning Resource Center
Hagan Foundation Center for the Humanities (Library, Second Floor)

Dr. Alexandra Horowitz is the author of Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know, a book that gives anyone who lives with, deals with, or admires dogs a new understanding of their sensory abilities, a nuanced interpretation of their behavior, and an appreciation of their minds. She evokes the dog's perspective by interweaving the science of dog cognition and perception with personal reflections on her own dog's behavior.

Dr. Horowitz is a cognitive scientist at Barnard College, Columbia University, in New York City. Her primary research area is in meta-cognition (which includes intentionality, theory of mind, and self-awareness) of human and non-human animals. She is a popular guest lecturer at institutions of higher education as well as on radio and television, and her writings have been featured in The New Yorker, Discover magazine, the Encyclopedia of Animal Behavior, Science Now, and many other publications.

» View Flash video of this presentation
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April 2010

Anna Lappé   

The SCC President's Speakers Series and the Hagan Foundation Center for the Humanities in partnership with EWU's Get Lit! proudly presented this national best-selling author.
speaker (photo)
Diet for a Hot Planet

7:00 PM, Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Lair Auditorium (Building 6)
Spokane Community College, Spokane, Washington

National best-selling author Anna Lappé spoke about her book, Diet for a Hot Planet. Lappé is one of the country's most sought-after speakers on the topics of sustainability and food politics, globalization, and social change.

On Thursday, April 15, there were two Sustainability: Community in Action sessions at the Hagan Foundation Center for the Humanities (SCC Learning Resources Center, Bldg. 16, Second Floor).

» View Flash video of this presentation
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February 2010

Joseph Cirincione

Joseph Cirincione

"The Transformation of U.S. Nuclear Policy"

7:00 PM, Thursday, February 25, 2010

Lair Auditorium (Building 6)
Spokane Community College, Spokane, Washington

Mr. Cirincione is currently the President of the Ploughshares Fund, a Washington D.C.-based foundation focused on nuclear nonproliferation, and he teaches at the Georgetown University Graduate School of Foreign Service. Cirincione has served as vice president for national security and international policy at the Center for American Progress and for eight years he held the position of director for non-proliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

He has authored two books, Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons and Deadly Arsenals: Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Threats. In addition, he appeared in the 2006 award-winning documentary Why We Fight. His principle areas of expertise are nuclear weapons and nuclear nonproliferation.

» View Flash video of this presentation
(video link)



October 2009

Dr. Robert Sapolsky (photo cr. Stanford News Agency)

Dr. Robert Sapolsky
Neuroscientist, Biologist, Science Writer, and Stress Expert

"Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers: Stress, Disease, and Coping - Stress and Where Stress-Related Diseases Come From"

7:00 PM, Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Lair Auditorium (Building 6)
Spokane Community College, Spokane, Washington

As a boy, Dr. Robert Sapolsky dreamed of going to Africa. His career ultimately took him there to study in-depth the social and stress conditions of baboons. From his field research and work as a neuroscientist, Sapolsky has developed an unbelievable and unique perspective on the human condition and specifically stress and stress-related disorders. His gift for storytelling led The New York Times to suggest, "If you crossed Jane Goodall with a borscht-belt comedian, she might have written a book like A Primate's Memoir, Sapolsky's account of his early years as a field biologist." In his recent book, Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, Dr. Sapolsky explains that "the problem for people is that our bodies' stress response evolved to help us get out of short-term physical emergencies - if a lion is chasing you, you run" and that such "reactions compromise long-term physical health in favor of immediate self-preservation. Unfortunately, when confronted with purely psychological stressors, such as troubleshooting the fax machine, modern humans turn on the same stress response. If you turn it on for too long, you get sick."

Sapolsky is a MacArthur "Genius" Fellow, a professor of biology and neurology at Stanford University, and a research associate with the Institute of Primate Research at the National Museum of Kenya. In 2008, National Geographic and PBS aired an hour-long special featuring Dr. Sapolsky and his research. He has written two other books - The Trouble with Testosterone and Monkeyluv and Other Essays on Our Lives as Animals - and his articles have appeared in Discover and The New Yorker. The New York Times has dubbed Dr. Robert Sapolsky "one of the finest natural history writers around." Sapolsky's artistic ability to bring humor and humanity to the sobering subject of stress and disease makes him a fascinating speaker. Join us for an entertaining and insightful journey into the human condition and stress-related illnesses with Dr. Robert Sapolsky.

This presentation took place Wednesday, October 21, 2009, at 7:00 PM in the Lair Auditorium (Building 6) on the Spokane Community College campus. Dr. Sapolsky's talk included a 30-minute question and answer period. It was followed by a reception and book signing in the Lair Lobby at 8:30 PM

Dr. Sapolsky also presented a separate question and answer session with students in the Hagan Foundation Center for the Humanities.


April 2009

Paul Roberts

Paul Roberts, Author
"The End of Food"

7:30 PM, Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Lair Auditorium (Building 6)
Spokane Community College, Spokane, Washington

Journalist Paul Roberts, author of the book The End of Food, keynotes Spokane Community College's President's Speakers Series 7:30 PM Wednesday, April 15, in the Lair-Student Center auditorium, Bldg. 6, 1810 N. Greene St.

The lecture was co-sponsored by Eastern Washington University's GetLit! festival and the Hagan Foundation Center for the Humanities at SCC.

A journalist since 1983, Roberts writes and lectures on the interplay of economics, technology, and the natural world. His work has appeared in The Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Newsweek, The Christian Science Monitor, and Rolling Stone. Roberts is also a frequent guest on television and radio news shows like "News Hour" (PBS), the "CBS Evening News" and NPR's "Morning Edition," "Weekend Edition," and "Fresh Air."

Roberts' first book, The End of Oil: On the Edge of a Perilous New World, examines the world's rapidly dwindling oil supply and offers a clear-sighted criticism of the United States' energy policy. The End of Food details how the rise of large-scale industrialized food production complexes actually undermines society's ability to produce safe, nourishing food that adequately meets the needs of a rapidly expanding world population.

» View streaming video of this presentation
(video link)
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For information about the SCC President's Speakers Series, contact the SCC President's Office, 533-7042.

GetLit!

About GetLit!

GetLit! is a weeklong community celebration for readers and writers, featuring author presentations and readings, writing workshops and panels, poetry slams among other events. Many events are free and open to the public. For information about upcoming GetLit! programs, visit www.ewu.edu/getlit or call (509) 368-6587.

About the Hagan Foundation Center for the Humanities

Hagan Foundation Center for the Humanities

The Hagan Foundation Center for the Humanities at Spokane Community College is dedicated to integrating liberal arts and humanities with the technical programs offered at SCC. The Center is also a significant way for SCC to contribute to the community's cultural life. The Hagan Foundation Center for the Humanities is a place where a community of minds can gather to explore various perspectives and ideas. For more information, visit www.scc.spokane.edu/?hfch.



October 2008

Scott Simon

Scott Simon, Writer/Novelist/Radio Host

7:00 PM, Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Lair Auditorium (Building 6)
Spokane Community College, Spokane, Washington

Writer/novelist Scott Simon, host of National Public Radio's "Weekend Edition," spoke at Spokane Community College - 7 PM, Tuesday, Oct. 28, in the Lair-Student Center auditorium, Bldg. 6, 1810 N. Greene St. as part of the SCC President's Speakers Series 2008-2009. Supported in part by Spokane Public Radio and The Pacific Northwest Inlander, Simon's presentation was free and open to the public.

Leading into the November 4 U.S. presidential election, Simon provided a 360-degree overview of political leadership, both global and domestic, and offered his views on global issues facing the next president of the United States. He also discussed the world leaders with whom the next U.S. President must work to accomplish positive results.

A Peabody Award winner, Simon has covered 10 wars, plus hundreds of political campaigns, sieges, famines, hurricanes, earthquakes, civil wars, scandals, state funerals - and opening nights. He has profiled international personalities such as Mother Theresa and Ariel Sharon as well as street kids in Rio de Janeiro and refugees from Kosovo and the Sudan.

In addition to his work on National Public Radio, Simon has hosted numerous public television specials, as well as appeared on "Weekend Today" (NBC) and "NOW with Bill Moyers" (PBS) as an essayist and commentator.

As a novelist, Simon published Pretty Birds, depicting the siege of Sarajevo, in 2005 and introduced the political comedy Windy City in 2008. His works also include Home and Away: Memoir of a Fan (2000), which topped The Los Angeles Times nonfiction bestseller list, and Jackie Robinson and the Integration of Baseball (2002), Barnes and Noble Sports Book of the Year.

Note: Simon's program, "Weekend Edition," airs Saturday and Sunday 6 to 10 AM on KPBX 91.1 FM and 5 to 7 AM and 10 to 11 AM on KSFC 91.9 FM.

Special thanks to SCC President's Speakers Series supporters:

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May 2008

Todd Carmichael

Todd Carmichael, International Entrepreneur
"Stepping Off the Path - The Road Less (and Best) Traveled by Successful Business People"

A discussion of differentiation and nonconformity in business and its role in a successful business life

7:00 PM, Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Lair Auditorium (Building 6)
Spokane Community College, Spokane, Washington

Todd Carmichael lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he and coffee roaster, Jean-Philippe Iberti, owned and operate one of the finest coffee businesses in the country, La Colombe Torrefaction. Carmichael and Iberti were featured in the November 2000 Entrepreneur Magazine as two of the country's up and coming young millionaires. Since that time, La Colombe Torrefaction has continued to boom. Carmichael spent the spring and summer of 2007 flying to and from Africa, where he is working on sustainability programs with coffee in Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.

As a social activist, Carmichael is known for his bold adventures. He’s been called "The Orangutan Man" for his trek across Antarctica to raise money to try to save the dwindling population of Sumatran orangutans.

More information about Carmichael's trek across Antarctica can be found at www.subzerosolo.com.


April 2008

David James Duncan

David James Duncan
"Holy Fools in Literature and in Real Life"

7:30 PM, Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Lair Auditorium (Building 6)
Spokane Community College, Spokane, Washington

I'm not about to do anything so sober and nonfoolish as lecture on "the holy fool in literature," or in Shakespeare, or some such thing. The only business I have with holy fools is to praise them as the fey, self-effacing heroes they are, as I aspire to become one myself. Anyone who's ever been in love is a first cousin to holy fools. My tales and memoirs and stories will explore this likeness. I'll also try to depict the holiness brought on by visitations from wild birds, the holiness I've seen in the act of forgiveness, and the holiness that sometimes bursts out of people whose hearts have been broken. The gist of the evening will be to explore holy fools via stories.

David James Duncan is an American novelist, essayist, and fly-fisherman. He is the author of two bestselling novels, The River Why (1983) and The Brothers K (1992). He has also written a collection of short stories, River Teeth, and a memoir of sorts, My Story As Told By Water (2001). His latest work is God Laughs and Plays (2006). Religious mysticism underlies a lot of his work and he frequently writes about environmental concerns. He grew up in suburban Portland, Oregon, and lives with his wife, children, and chickens somewhere in Montana. His favorite chicken is named Osprey.


February 2008

Orville Schell

Orville Schell
"China: Environment and Climate Change"

7:00 PM, Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Lair Auditorium (Building 6)
Spokane Community College, Spokane, Washington

With China, the most populous nation in the world, producing an ever larger share of the world's industrial goods and with it having just passed the US as the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, it has entered a period of environmental crisis. But what is notable about this crisis for the rest of the world is that what happens in China - whether through polluting its rivers, over-fishing its marine habitat, deforesting its woodlands, contaminating its food-stocks, overgrazing its pasture land or degrading its air resources - China's problems are now everyone's problem. Thus understanding what is happening in that crucial country is more important than ever for Americans to understand.

Biographical Information:

"Mr. Schell's blend of graceful analysis and unobtrusive firsthand reporting... skillfully captures the improbable, even surreal, air of theater that pervades much of contemporary China."
The New York Times Book Review

While best known as one of the country's most well-informed and thoughtful observers on China, Orville Schell has also been a ship-hand, a war correspondent in Indochina, a rancher, a journalist reporting for such magazines as The New York Times Magazine, Harpers, The New Yorker, TIME, Wired, and Foreign Affairs. He has been a contributor on China for PBS, NBC, and CBS, where a 60 Minutes program of his won an Emmy. He has also served as a correspondent for several PBS/Frontline documentaries on China and Tibet and covered the war in Iraq for The New York Review of Books.

"Orville Schell has for more than 30 years been widely admired for his original and resourceful journalism, especially his nine books and many in-depth reports for The New Yorker and other publications about China."
The San Francisco Examiner

Until recently, Schell served as Dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley. While he will remain on the UC Berkeley faculty, he has now been appointed as Director of the Asia Society's newly established Center on US-China Relations in New York City. In this new capacity, he will lead new programs on the environment, the media and foreign policy in an effort promote more constructive dialogue between key Chinese and American leaders. He will also be a Fellow at Shorenstein Center at the John F. Kennedy School, Harvard University.

Schell has served on the board of Human Rights Watch, Current TV and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. His written work includes some fifteen books, ten of them about China, including Virtual Tibet, Mandate of Heaven and Discos and Democracy, as well as the five-volume China Reader. He is currently working on issues of continuing political and economic reform in China.

His lecture topics include:

Schell has been honored with fellowships from the Alicia Patterson Foundation, the MacDowell Colony, the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the Freedom Forum at Columbia University. He has also received numerous honors, including the Overseas Press Club of America Award, a Page One Award, and, most recently, the Shorenstein Journalism Award from Stanford and Harvard Universities for the best coverage of Asia.

Schell, who also has an active interest in photography, has also written the opening essays for such books as Jack Birns' Assignment Shanghai, James Whitlow Delano's Empire: Impressions from China, and Sebastiao Salgado's Sahel: The End of The Road.

Schell is currently working on a book on Chinese history for the Modern Library at Random House.


November 2007

Dayna Baumeister

Dayna Baumeister, Ph.D.
"What Would Nature Do? Biomimicry as a Path to Sustainability"

7:30 PM, Thursday, November 8, 2007

Lair Auditorium (Building 6)
Spokane Community College, Spokane, Washington

In a world that needs one brilliant idea after another, it's good to be surrounded by genius. Biomimicry - the process of finding sustainable ideas by echoing nature - is finding a home in companies, universities, and organizations throughout the world. Our ability to borrow life's blueprints and recipes is on the rise, and so is the need for more elegant, energysipping, non-toxic designs. It's no wonder that companies are inviting "biologists to the design table," and biomimicry studios in universities are giving the next generation of designers, biologists, and engineers a new place to look for answers.

Dayna Baumeister, Ph.D., provided a visual tour of the world of bio-inspired, sustainable emerging innovations.

Biographical Information:

Co-founder of the Biomimicry Guild, Dayna's fascination and intrigue with the natural world began early with daily forays into the woods behind her home and weekend trips to the mountains with her family. As an adult, nature has been an inspiration in all of her personal and professional endeavors. Starting at the coastal seashore of Florida, Dayna received a BS in Marine Biology from New College in Sarasota. After several years exploring the intricate relationships of coral reefs, she turned in her wetsuit and headed back to the mountains. There, Dayna earned a MS in Resource Conservation and a PhD in Organismic Biology and Ecology from the University of Montana in Missoula, specializing in dynamics of positive interactions among animal and plant life. With a background in biology, a devotion to applied natural history, and a passion for sharing the wonders of nature with others, Dayna has worked in the field of Biomimicry since 1998 as an educator, researcher, and design consultant. As co-founder and keystone for the Biomimicry Guild, Dayna acts as the liaison between all members of the Guild. In addition, she brings her skills as a systems thinker and organic communicator to her dynamic workshops, presentations, seminars, and exhibits, which have introduced the idea of nature as model, measure, and mentor to thousands of designers, business managers, and engineers around the country. Bringing home the principles of life that she espouses in her work, Dayna finds physical and spiritual sustenance as a gardener, hunter, yoga instructor, and naturalist. She lives with her family in the foothills of the inspiring landscape of the rugged Rocky Mountain Front in Montana.


May 2007

Anne Lamott

Anne Lamott

In partnership with Whitworth College and the SCC Hagan Center Foundation for the Humanities, SCC's President's Speakers Series was honored to present Anne Lamott Saturday, May 12, at 7:30 PM This event was held in the Cowles Memorial Auditorium on the campus of Whitworth College, and is free and open to the public.

Anne Lamott is the best-selling author of Bird by Bird, Operating Instructions, and Traveling Mercies. Her newest collection of essays, Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith, will be available March 2007.

Biographical Information:

Anne Lamott writes and speaks about subjects that begin with capital letters: Alcoholism, Motherhood, Jesus. But armed with self-effacing humor – she is laugh out-loud funny – and ruthless honesty, Lamott converts her subjects into enchantment. Actually, she writes about what most of us don't like to think about. She wrote her first novel for her father, the writer Kenneth Lamott, when he was diagnosed with brain cancer. She has said that the book was "a present to someone I loved who was going to die." In all her novels, Anne Lamott writes about loss - loss of loved ones and loss of personal control. She doesn't try to sugar-coat the sadness, frustration and disappointment, but tells her stories with honesty, compassion and a pureness of voice. Anne Lamott says, "I have a lot of hope and a lot of faith and I struggle to communicate that." Anne Lamott does communicate her faith; in her books and in person, she lifts, comforts, and inspires, all the while keeping us laughing.

Anne Lamott is the author of six novels including, Hard Laughter, Rosie, Joe Jones, All New People, and Crooked Little Heart (the sequel to Rosie), as well as four best-selling books of non-fiction, Operating Instructions, an account of life as a single mother during her son's first year, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, a guide to writing and the challenges of a writer's life, Traveling Mercies, a collection of autobiographical essays on faith, and Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith. Anne Lamott has been honored with a Guggenheim Fellowship and has taught at U.C. Davis, as well as at writing conferences across the country. Lamott's biweekly Salon Magazine "online diary" Word by Word was voted The Best of the Web by Time magazine. Filmmaker Freida Mock (who won an Academy Award for her documentary on Maya Lin) has made a documentary on Anne Lamott, "Bird by Bird with Annie" (1999).


April 2007

Donald Worster

Donald Worster, Ph.D.
"On John Muir's Trail:
Nature in an Age of Liberal Principles"

Spokane Community College and Eastern Washington University's Office of Academic Affairs present a Get Lit! event on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 at 7:30 PM in SCC's Lair Auditorium (Building 6).

Spokane Community College
1810 N. Greene St.
Spokane, Washington

A passionate and eloquent pioneer in the field of environmental history, Donald Worster is the author of the acclaimed A River Running West: The Life of John Wesley Powell, which won the David W. and Beatrice C. Evans Biography Award and the Henry Adams Prize. His many publications include Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity, and the Growth of the American West, for which Worster was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and Nature's Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas, which traces the evolution of ecology from the 18th century to the present day. His book Dust Bowl, a study of the Southern Plains in the "dirty '30s," was heralded as "a stunning entry in the newly emerging field of environmental history." Published in 1979, Dust Bowl won the 1980 Bancroft Prize.

Worster, who earned his doctoral degree from Yale University, currently holds the Hall Distinguished Professorship Chair in American history at the University of Kansas and has lectured throughout the United States and in Africa, Asia, Europe, Canada, Central America, and Australia. The New York Times Book Review has compared his writing about the West with the work of John Muir, Edward Abbey, Bernard DeVoto, and Wallace Stegner, acknowledging it as "distinguished company indeed, and Donald Worster stands tall in it."


February 2007

Dr. William F. Schulz

Dr. William F. Schulz
"Terror, Torment, and Tyranny:
The State of Human Rights Today"

7:00 PM, Monday, February 26, 2007
Lair Auditorium
Building 6 (Lair Student Center)

Spokane Community College
1810 N. Greene St.
Spokane, Washington

"William Schulz. . . has done more than anyone in the American human rights movement to make human rights issues known in the United States."
- New York Review of Books, 2002

Dr. William F. Schulz is the former Executive Director of Amnesty International USA from 1994-2006. Amnesty International is recognized as the world's foremost human rights organization. He has led human rights missions to Liberia; Tunisia; Darfur, Sudan; Northern Ireland, along with numerous other regions. Schulz is the author of two books on human rights, In Our Own Best Interest: How Defending Human Rights Benefits Us All, and Tainted Legacy: 9/11 and the Ruin of Human Rights. As an ordained minister, Dr. Schulz served and was president of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations from 1985-1993. Currently, he is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and a Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard, and an Adjunct Professor at the New School in New York City.


November 2006

Linda Lawrence Hunt

Linda Lawrence Hunt
"Hemispheres of Hope:
Bold-spirited Living in a Post 9-11 World"

Author of Bold Spirit (www.boldspiritacrossamerica.com)

9:30 and 10:30 AM, Wednesday, November 8, 2006
Hagan Foundation Center for the Humanities
Building 16 (Library), Second Floor
Spokane Community College
1810 N. Greene St.
Spokane, Washington

7:00 PM, Wednesday, November 8, 2006
Lair Auditorium
Building 6 (Lair Student Center)
Spokane Community College
1810 N. Greene St.
Spokane, Washington

With audiences across America, Dr. Linda Lawrence Hunt explores the powerful intersection between cultural influences and the human spirit. One of the profound legacies of 9/11 includes living in a national culture saturated with a daily barrage of fear messages. Can we recognize and dismantle these force fields of fear that erode our personal, national, and global communities? In these challenging times, we must reclaim the hemispheres of hope, which includes the study of humanities, that encourage citizens and leaders to engage the world with bold-spirited vision, commitments, and enlarged hearts and minds.

More about Linda Lawrence Hunt:

Dr. Linda Lawrence Hunt is the director of The Krista Foundation for Global Citizenship founded to honor the legacy of her daughter Krista Hunt Ausland, who was killed while volunteering in Bolivia. The foundation provides support and a mentoring community for young adults engaged in volunteer service in America's inner cities, developing nations, and in environmental projects. Early in her career as a writing professor, Dr. Hunt taught briefly in the English Department at Spokane Community College before becoming director of the Whitworth College writing program.

She is also the author of the award-winning book Bold Spirit. A true story of a Spokane mother and daughter who walked across America during the Victorian era to save a family farm, it has been chosen by SCC's Humanities Program as their common reader for Fall 2006. Through her leadership with The Krista Foundation and as an author, Dr. Hunt speaks across the nation on cultural influences, leadership and service, the silencing of family stories, and the strength and vulnerability of the human spirit.

Bold Spirit won the national Willa Cather Literary Award, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award, and the Washington State Book Award. It was chosen by ForeWord Magazine as one of the "top-ten 'break-out' books from university presses" for 2004 and has been featured on CNN. A graduate of the University of Washington, Dr. Hunt researched Helga Estby's forgotten story for her doctoral dissertation at Gonzaga University.

ForeWord Magazine says of Bold Spirit: "Thanks to the author's seventeen years of dogged research, a heroic 'forgotten first' and a new women's history classic has emerged."


April 2006

Gregory Stock

Dr. Gregory Stock
Enhancing the Human:
Genomics, Science Fiction and Ethics Collide


President/CEO
Signum Biosciences
 
Professor
Health Sciences
UCLA
 
Program Director
Medicine, Technology
      and Society
UCLA School of Public Health


Wednesday, April 12, 2006, 7 PM
Lair Student Center Auditorium
Spokane Community College
1810 N. Greene St., MS 2011
Spokane, WA 99217-5399
Contact: 509-533-8657

A reception and book signing followed the presentation.

Life Science Author: Redesigning Humans, winner of Kistler Book Prize for science; The Merging of Humans and Machines into a Global Superorganism; The Book of Questions, New York Times bestseller; Kids' Book of Questions; The Book of Questions: Business, Politics and Ethics; Engineering the Human Germline: An Exploration of the Science and Ethics of Altering the Genes We Pass to Our Children (editor); nominee for a Rave award by Wired magazine

Dr. Gregory Stock believes we are at a defining moment in human evolution. A thousand years from now our descendants will point to this time, with its critical breakthroughs in computers, genetics, and space travel, as one of the key transitions in the long history of life. Dr. Stock has explored the larger evolutionary significance of humanity's recent technological progress for many years, examining the subject at length in his book The Merging of Humans and Machines into a Global Superorganism.

A recognized expert on the larger implications of today's revolution in the Life Sciences, Dr. Stock convened the first major public conference to discuss our potential to select the genes we pass to our children. This symposium drew international attention and opened up a wide public debate on the hitherto taboo topic. He has also convened landmark conferences on genomic testing and anti-aging medicine.

Dr. Stock has published research papers on topics ranging from developmental biology and limb regeneration to laser light scattering, and is on the editorial board of the American Journal of Bioethics, the International Journal of Bioethics, and the Journal of Evolution and Technology. He makes frequent appearances on radio and television, including NPR, CNN, PBS, Bloomberg, and the BBC, speaks regularly to business, government, and academic audiences, has debated biotech policy with Jeremy Rifkin, Leon Kass, Francis Fukuyama, Bill McKibben, George Annas and other prominent voices who would rein in biomedical research, and recently he hosted a television special on key figures in today's biotech revolution.

Dr. Stock received a Ph.D. in biophysics from Johns Hopkins University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. Currently the President and CEO of Signum Biosciences, a company he co-founded in 2002, he is developing therapeutics for Alzheimer's. He is also visiting at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School, where he is exploring new regulatory possibilities for the pharmaceutical industry.


November 2005

John Esposito

Dr. John Esposito

Professor of Religion and International Affairs, Professor of Islamic Studies and Founding Director of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at the Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University

7 PM, Thursday, November 17, 2005
Lair Student Audiorium
Spokane Community College
1810 N. Greene St.
Spokane, Washington

Understanding the politics and culture of the Islamic world has become an imperative for America. No one is better equipped to foster this understanding than John Esposito, a world renowned scholar on Islam and the Middle East. Esposito is the author of more than thirty books on Islam and is the editor-in-chief of the four-volume Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, The Oxford Dictionary of Islam, and The Islamic World: Past and Present. His monographs, translated into Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Japanese, Chinese, and European languages, include What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam, Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam, The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality?, Islam and Politics, and many others. A former president of the Middle East Studies Association of North America, Esposito founded the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding in 1993 to foster a better understanding of Islam and of Muslim-Christian relations in the West. He is also a consultant to the U.S. Department of State and to corporations, universities, and the media worldwide.

In his provocative, challenging and refreshingly honest presentations, John Esposito explores the reality of Islam's relationship with the West, and the resentment and misunderstanding that have characterized this often troubled relationship. He cuts through the web of misconceptions, helping listeners better understand Muslims and their place in the modern world.
  


May 2005

Terry Tempest Wiliams

Terry Tempest Williams -
Essayist and Nature Writer

"...(W)hat Williams has come to understand in trying to solve environmental issues is that it is not just a political process, but a spiritual one."

Monday, May 2, 2005
Spokane Community College
1810 N. Greene St.
Spokane, Washington

Visit with the author at 9:30-10:30 AM and 10:30-11:30 AM in the SCC Center for the Humanities (Bldg. 16 - LRC/Library - 2nd floor)
 
Special presentation at 7 PM in the SCC Lair Auditorium (Bldg. 6)

Terry Tempest Williams is perhaps best known for her book Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place, where she chronicles the epic rise of the Great Salt Lake and flooding of the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge in 1983. Written alongside her mother's diagnosis of ovarian cancer, believed to be caused by radioactive fallout from the nuclear tests in the Nevada desert in the 1950s and '60s, Refuge is now regarded as a classic in American nature writing, a testament to loss and the earth's healing grace. The San Francisco Chronicle wrote, "There has never been a book like Refuge ...utterly original."

Her most recent book, Red: Patience and Passion in the Desert, traces her lifelong love of and commitment to the desert, inspiring a soulful return to "wild mercy" and the spiritual and political commitment of preserving the fragile redrock wilderness of southern Utah.

Williams grew up within sight of the Great Salt Lake in Salt Lake City, Utah. "I write through my biases of gender, geography, and culture," she says. "I am a woman whose ideas have been shaped by the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau; these ideas are then filtered through the prism of my culture and my culture is Mormon. The tenets of family and community which I see at the heart of that culture are then articulated through story." How we as a culture engage in civic life raises political questions, but what Williams has come to understand in trying to solve environmental issues is that it is not just a political process, but a spiritual one. As a writer, Williams seeks to see the world whole, with all its paradoxes, humor, and complexity. Her art form is storytelling where one remembers what it means to be human.

Not only has Williams been identified as someone likely to make "a considerable impact on the political, economic, and environmental issues facing the western states this decade," she has testified before the U.S. Congress twice regarding the environmental links associated with cancer and has been a strong advocate for America's Redrock Wilderness Act. Recently, Williams' work has appeared in The New York Times, the International Herald, and other newspapers as she has questioned the current administration's environmental policies on public land issues, particularly in the American West.

Her other books include Pieces of White Shell - A Journey to Navajoland; Coyote's Canyon: An Unspoken Hunger - Stories from the Field; Desert Quartet; and Leap - A Meditation on Hieronymous Bosch's triptych, "The Garden of Earthly Delights." In October 2004, The Orion Society published a trilogy of her essays entitled The Open Space of Democracy, a personal perspective on the ethics and politics of place, spiritual democracy, and the responsibilities of citizen engagement.

Terry Tempest Williams' work has been widely anthologized, having also appeared in The New Yorker, The Nation, Orion, Outside, and Audubon, among other national and international publications. She is the recipient of a Lannan Literary Fellowship in creative nonfiction, as well as a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Lila Wallace-Readers Digest Community Grant. Williams is recognized as both a teacher and lecturer, passionate about the social issues of our time on the page and in the world.

This presentation is supported in part by the generous contribution of SCC's Associated Student Council.


October 2004

Diversity and Democracy:
Transcending America's Racial Divide

Manning Marable, Ph.D.

Manning Marable, Ph.D.
Professor of public affairs, political science, and history
Columbia University

7 PM - Tuesday, October 19, 2004
The Lair-Student Center (Bldg. 6)
Spokane Community College · 1810 N. Greene St.

» Free and open to the public
» Reception and book signing following the presentation

Historian, political theorist and human rights activist, Manning Marable is one of America's most influential experts on racial politics and the black experience in America. During his compelling presentation, Marable guides his audience through the past and future of race relations in the U.S., concluding with a dynamic vision of a new and inclusive model of democracy for our country.

Marable is founding director of Columbia University's Institute for Research in African-American Studies, considered to be one of the country's most prestigious centers of scholarship on the black American experience. He also has taught at Colgate University, Hamilton, New York; Ohio State University, Columbus; and the University of Colorado, Boulder.

A graduate of Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, Marable holds a doctoral degree in American history from the University of Maryland in College Park. He has written or edited 20 books and anthologies, including The Great Wells of Democracy: The Meaning of Race in American Life; Let Nobody Turn Us Around: Voices of Resistance, Reform and Renewal: An African-American Anthology (co-authored with Leith Mullings); and Black Liberation in Conservative America. In addition, he writes a political commentary series, "Along the Color Line," which appears in more than 400 newspapers and journals worldwide.

You can learn more about Dr. Marable by visiting his Web site (www.manningmarable.net) or by selecting his name from the list of speakers at the American Program Bureau's Web site.

Spokane Community College · Information: (509) 533-7042 (President's Office)
Person(s) with a disability requiring any auxiliary aids or accommodations should contact the college. For TTY service, call 533-7482. Community Colleges of Spokane provides equal opportunity in education and employment.