Skip to main content

Westminster College Diversity Symposium Finishes February with Three Programs

Share on:

Posted on Friday, February 9, 2001

The Westminster College Diversity Symposium finishes February with three events, which are free and open to the public.

The Diversity symposium is designed to help students and the community acquire a knowledge and appreciation of differences among people, human cultures, and the natural world.

Thursday, Feb. 22, at 11 a.m. in Beeghly Theatre, Chuck Christian, a former Roman Catholic priest who is now a counselor at Persad, a counseling center for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals in Pittsburgh, will speak. He will be speaking about issues of homosexuality. For more information on this event, contact Dr. Elizabeth Ford, associate professor of English at Westminster College, at (724) 946-7350.

Tuesday, Feb. 27, at 6:30 p.m. in Walton-Mayne Union Lounge, three Westminster College students, Tracy Hamilton, a junior international business major from Apollo, Steven Klebacha, a junior Spanish major from Pittsburgh, Avis Devine, a senior financial economics major from Holland, N.Y., and Melissa Williams, a senior English major from Atlantic, will speak on their experience in Westminster's study abroad program. The students will also have photos, slides, and souvenirs to share with the audience. For more information regarding this presentation, contact Linda Volpe, director of off-campus study, at (724) 946-7120.

Wednesday, Feb. 28, at 7 p.m. in Walton-Mayne Union Lounge, Armor & Sturtevant will share their original and traditional folk music and stories. Their unique sound is a hybrid of East African traditional, American old-time, and their own original music, and has been heard in folk festivals, concerts, coffee houses, churches, and schools for the past seven years.

Armor studied flute and composition at Yale before spending two years in Kenya and Tanzania where she lived with native people and collected their songs, folklore, and instruments.

Sturtevant grew up listening to and accompanying the fiddle playing of his father. His songs reflect his old-time roots and his lifetime of living along the Great Lakes. His songs have been covered by other nationally-touring folk artists.

For more information on Armor & Sturtevant, contact Dr. David Twining, associate professor of history at Westminster College, at (724) 946-7249.