Pick’s lecture, “I want to, I can: Development Programs Step-by-Step Using the Human Capabilities Approach,” will focus on the Yo quiero, yo puedo (I want to, I can) development programs, which have reached more than 19 million people in Mexico and another 14 countries, most of them in Latin America.

She was chosen as the Batalden Seminar speaker based upon her insight as an academic and an activist.

“Susan Pick exemplifies Augsburg’s mission of becoming an engaged citizen in a global context, and she will assist students in thinking about their own vocations,” said Matt Maruggi, assistant professor of religion and the Batalden Faculty Scholar in Applied Ethics. “She is a professor and is directly involved in work with society’s poor and vulnerable. The Yo quiero, yo puedo programs have helped more than 19 million people worldwide.”

The lecture will demonstrate, through testimonies, how people have been improved the quality of their lives by making specific behavior changes. Pick also will share how individuals have become agents of change in their communities in four areas: education, health, citizenship, and productivity.

Following the Convocation, Pick will join students for a luncheon and will also be speaking in classes in a broad range of disciplines including women’s studies, social work, and political science.

About Susan E. Pick

Susan Pick is the founder and president of the Mexican Institute for Family and Population Research (IMIFAP). She developed the Framework for Enabling Empowerment (FrEE), which emphasizes the importance of personal agency in academic performance, participatory citizenship, health promotion, poverty reduction, and sustainable community development.

Pick’s work has been featured in television, radio, print, and web media in Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, and the United States. She is the author of more than 500 publications including scientific articles, children’s books, training manuals, and textbooks. Pick holds bachelor’s and doctoral degrees in social psychology from the University of London.

The Batalden Seminar in Applied Ethics

The annual Batalden Seminar is funded by the Batalden Applied Ethics Fund, established by Abner and Martha Batalden, Paul and LaVonne Batalden, and Stephen and Sandra Batalden. The fund brings national and international authorities in the field of ethics to Augsburg College to discuss questions of applied ethics within spiritual and practical dimensions.

Convocation Hashtags

Share your convocation experience using social media. The hashtag for the Batalden Seminar in Applied Ethics with Susan E. Pick is #Batalden.

Consider:

–How are you an engaged citizen through your study at Augsburg? How can you be engaged with the people of your community in your future career?

–What behavior changes can you make that would improve your life and the lives of others in your community?

The Augsburg College Convocation Series

Augsburg’s of speakers explores the impact that an individual can have in a global population of 6.7 billion people. Presentations touch on topics in the arts, humanities, and sciences.

Each session offers an opportunity to hear from leaders in their areas of expertise. David Weitz, Harvard University professor of physics and applied physics, will discuss the “Physics of Food” and the “Magic of Microfluids” at the Sverdrup Visiting Scientist Lectures to be held Monday, April 8 and Tuesday, April 9.

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Though not an economist by training, he received Mexico’s National Prize of Political Economy for his contribution to the theory of inflation, and though not a sociologist was President of the 5th World Rural Sociology Congress. He also served as President of the Mexican Society of Planning, as Vice-president of the Inter-American Society of Planning, and served as Board Member and Interim Chairman of the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development.

In his early career, he held senior positions in both private business and government, and was destined for a distinguished career within Mexico’s establishment. He decided, however, that solutions to people’s problems could come only from the people themselves and has since dedicated himself to their service.

He is a well known writer, with three dozen books and hundreds of essays and articles published around the world in numerous languages. Through regular columns in leading Mexican newspapers, he takes special interest in expanding public awareness about the reality and hopes of the so called poor with whom he is associated.

Gustavo is an active voice within the “deprofessionalized” segment of the Southern intellectual community. He rejects both the terminology and constructs of development in all its forms as inherently destructive of the human processes by which common people work to recreate community as a creative expression of their culture and aspirations. Gustavo argues that even the “alternative” development prescriptions lead inexorably to depriving the people of control over their own lives and shifting this control to bureaucrats, technocrats, and educators. Rather than presume that human progress fits some predetermined mold leading toward an increasing homogenization of cultures and life styles, he prefers a “radical pluralism” that honors and nurtures distinctive culture variety and enables many paths to the realization of self-defined aspirations. In Grassroots Postmodernism: Remaking the Soil of Cultures and Escaping Education: Living as Learning at the Grassroots, that he wrote with Madhu S. Prakash, he elaborates on his thesis.

He was invited by the Zapatistas to be their advisor, in 1996. Since then, he has been very active in what today is called Zapatismo, involving himself with the current struggle of the indigenous peoples. He lives in a small Zapotec village in the south of Mexico.

The Batalden Seminar in Applied Ethics

The annual Batalden Seminar is funded by the Batalden Applied Ethics Fund, established by Abner and Martha Batalden, Paul and LaVonne Batalden, and Stephen and Sandra Batalden. The fund brings national and

international authorities in the field of ethics to Augsburg College to discuss questions of applied ethics within spiritual and practical dimensions.

Friday, February 26, 2010, 10 a.m. “Beyond Development and Education: The Good Life”

Saturday, February 27, 2010, Noon, “From Crisis to Commons”

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The 2009 Batalden Seminar in Applied Ethics will be feature Professor Larry Rasmussen, former Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary.

Rasmussen was at Union Theological Seminary from 1986 to 2004. Prior to that he was professor of Christian ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary and assistant professor of religion at St. Olaf College. He has served as a visiting professor at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia and at St. Olaf College.

Rasmussen is a past president of the Society of Christian Ethics and a past editor of The Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics. He served as a member of the Core Faculty of Auburn Theological Seminary, New York. He was a member of the Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is currently a member of the Board of Regents of St. Olaf College and the Board of the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago.

His books include Earth Community, Earth Ethics and Bible and Ethics in the Christian Life (co-authored with Bruce Birch). He is co-editor, with Dieter Hessel, of Earth Habitat: Eco-Injustice and the Churchâ€s Response and co-author with Daniel C. Maguire of Ethics for a Small Planet: New Horizons on Population, Consumption, and Ecology.

Feb. 26, 7:30 p.m., Christianity’s Ecological Phase: Talking the Walk

Feb. 27, 10 a.m.,Christianity’s Ecological Phase: Walking the Talk

Feb. 28, 12:15 p.m., Christianity’s Ecological Challenge: Walking the Talk

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Realism and the New Realities” at the annual Batalden Seminar in Applied Ethics. The series of events, to be held, Feb. 28 – March 1, is part of the 2007-2008  Convocation Series “Many Voices Bold Vision.”

Dr. Robin Lovin is a Cary Maguire University professor of Ethics at Southern Methodist University. He joined the SMU faculty in July 1994 and served as dean of Perkins School of Theology from 1994-2002. From 1991-1994, Lovin was dean at the Theological School of Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. His teaching career includes service as an instructor at Candler School of Theology of Emory University and 13 years as a faculty member at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. He is a graduate of Northwestern University (B.A.) and Harvard University (B.D. and Ph.D). He is an ordained minister of The United Methodist Church.

The Convocation is free and open to the public. The 2007-2008 Augsburg

Convocation Series is the eighth annual series incorporating long-standing

endowed and special programs of Augsburg College. For more information

about the Augsburg Convocation series visit:

Schedule of Events

Thursday, Feb. 28, 7:30 p.m.

“Creating Global Order: A Niebuhrian View of New Realities”

Hoversten Chapel, Foss Center

Friday, Feb. 29, 10 a.m.

“Global Order and Global Warming: Thinking with Niebuhr about Politics”

Hoversten Chapel, Foss Center

Saturday, March 1, noon

Mini-Convocation, “Faith and Politics: A Niebuhrian Perspective”

Minneapolis Room, Christensen Center

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