ncur 2011 conference program ithaca college 25th national

Plenary Speakers
David Campbell
Professor of Biology, Grinnell College
Friday, April 1, 2:15–3:30 p.m.
Ford Hall, Whalen Center
With Simulcast in Hockett Family Recital Hall, Whalen Center*
The Ghosts of Empire: The Signature of the Classic Maya
Civilization on the Forests of Central America
For 4,000 years, the Maya have been tweaking and manipulating
the species composition of the forests of Mesoamerica to serve as
a living larder for food, construction materials, medicine, and a
myriad of other purposes. As a result, the Maya have transformed
those forests into anthropogenic “feral forest gardens.”
Since 1993, 14 cohorts of Grinnell College and Mesoamerican
students have spent their summers in Belize living among the
Yucatec Maya people and studying their relationship to their natal
forest. We have learned that the
Yucatec Maya have the most
species-rich domestic gardens
on Earth (a total of 545 species
of flowering plants, most of
which are trees, representing
approximately 30 percent
of the floristic diversity of
Belize). The margin between
a Maya domestic garden and
the forest is invisible; each is
derived from the other. For 500
years the Yucatec people have
maintained a rich vocabulary
for these species, and the
naming of the parts of the forest has preserved their language and
cultural identity in the face of genocide, epidemics, and colonial
exploitation. In this way language and biophilia have become
inextricably bound. To be Maya is to be a gardener, and to be a
gardener is to speak Mayan.
Campbell’s talk, although packed with data and analysis, is
also picaresque and humorous, full of anecdotes of the adventures
(and misadventures) of fieldwork and the poignant life stories
of our Maya collaborators. Ultimately, it delivers a lesson in
human rights, by celebrating the Yucatec Maya’s splendid but
unappreciated biophilia—an accomplishment as great as their
renowned mathematics, astronomy, and architecture.
Brian Wansink
John S. Dyson Professor of Marketing and Consumer Behavior,
Director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab,
Author of Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think
Saturday, April 2, 10:00–11:15 a.m.
Ford Hall, Whalen Center
With Simulcast in Hockett Family Recital Hall, Whalen Center*
Mindless Eating: Psychology,
College Students, and Food
Most of us don’t overeat
because we’re hungry. We
overeat because of family and
friends, packages and plates,
names and numbers, labels
and lights, colors and candles,
shapes and smells, distractions
and distances, cupboards and
containers.
Based on 20 years of
research, Professor Wansink
shows how we mindlessly
eat and how we can turn it around. Interestingly, the solution
to mindless eating is not “mindful eating.” Instead it is setting
up your home, table, and office so that you mindlessly eat less
rather than mindlessly overeat. During his presentation, Wansink
will identify three cues that lead to mindless eating, isolate what
makes people eat more than they think, and identify which small
changes are most likely to have a ripple effect. See more at
MindlessEating.org.
*And other locations in Whalen Center as needed. Nonregistrants should attend simulcast in Textor 101, 102, and 103.
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