Fall 2020 AAP Guest Speaker Series

Each semester, the Associate in Arts Program hosts a variety of guest speakers at each campus — authors, entrepreneurs, researchers, and community leaders. Guest speakers for the fall 2020 series, "Hindsight is 2020," provided students with a lens through which to view the most prominent major events of this year, such as the presidential election and the COVID-19 crisis, as well as a look further back to important anniversaries observed this year, such as the passage of the 15th and 19th amendments to the U.S. Constitution, which still have profound implications for our country. The AAP would like to thank all of the fall 2020 guest speakers who participated in our virtual events and introduced our students to many different perspectives, experiences, and paths to success.

Guests from the Delaware chapter of the League of Women Voters joined us on Monday, Oct. 5, for a look into issues surrounding voting in general and the presidential election. Chapter members Jill Itzkowitz, Kim Wells, and Alan Evantash discussed the general election, specific problems for voting posed by social distancing measures, the process of voting by mail, how to identify and report instances of voter suppression, and general information about voting in Delaware. They also mentioned other opportunities for students to register to vote for the Nov. 3 election and explained other ways that students could get involved in the electoral process.   

View the Oct. 5 League of Women Voters Zoom Presentation

On Monday, Nov. 9, four researchers from the University of Delaware’s world-renowned Disaster Research Center (DRC) joined us for "The Science of Disaster: Disaster Research and COVID-19" to discuss how disaster scientists are working to measure the impact of the COVID crisis. Ph.D. students Felicia Henry, Virginia Berndt, Michael Michaud, and Zachary Cox explained the work of the DRC and their ongoing DRC Study on the Community Impacts and Adaptation to COVID-19, and talked about the academic opportunities available in disaster research, such as courses on Disaster and Society and the Emergency and Environmental Management concentration major in sociology. They also shared with students the personal routes they had taken to reach their field of study and discussed some of their past research experiences, offering insights into both the scientific process and potential career paths for students.

View the Nov. 9 "Science of Disaster" Zoom Presentation

On Monday, Nov. 30, the AAP hosted a joint faculty presentation, "Voting: Whose Right is it, Anyway?" and discussed a variety of topics surrounding voting and voting rights in the U.S. All topics for the presentation were selected from questions that had been submitted by AAP students. Faculty members Emma Jean Joseph, Alexia Mintos, David Teague, Sarah Trembanis, and Matthew Willis spoke on voting-related topics related to their discipline, including the 15th and 19 Constitutional amendments, how Electoral College votes and opinion polls are calculated and assessed, the history of voting rights and voter suppression among historically disenfranchised groups, and one of the most well-known works of literature celebrating democracy and equality: the 1855 preface to Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. 

View the Nov. 30 "Voting: Whose Right is it, Anyway?" Zoom Presentation