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FVCC Honors Symposium to Focus on Millenials, ‘The Next America’

This year’s lecture series will examine the next America and how the nation is facing challenges

By Beacon Staff

Flathead Valley Community College’s Honors Symposium will return Feb. 23, offering students and members of the community five opportunities to hear from regional and national experts who will address various topics that support this year’s theme, “The Next America:  How Millennials are Changing Everything.”

The college brings these free lectures to the community to provide credible and substantive information on important topics of public interest.

This year’s lecture series will examine the next America and how the nation is facing challenges that seem to threaten some of its most cherished foundations.

The opening presentation on Feb. 23, titled “Generation Me and the Rise of Individualism: Understanding Generational Differences,” by Jean Twenge, Ph.D., will describe a common theme of how millennials are commonly focused on self and less on social rules and how they approach key issues they are facing in the 21st century.

The series will continue with discussions on changing perceptions on religion, health care and drug policy, as well as a consideration of the implications of increased political polarization and changing attitudes on family and gender roles.

The symposium will continue with the following presentations:

March 2:  “The Rise of the ‘Nones’: Why More Americans are Becoming Non-religious,” by Phil Zuckerman, Ph.D., professor of sociology and secular studies at Pitzer College in Claremont, Calif.;

March 10: “Obamacare and Legalized Recreational Marijuana,” by Gregg Davis, Ph.D., professor of economics at Flathead Valley Community College;

March 17: “Polarization, Fragmentation, and Culture Wars:  the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,” by Christopher Muste, Ph.D., associate professor of political science at The University of Montana, Missoula

March 23:  “The Way We Never Were:  American Families and the Nostalgia Trap,” by Stephanie Coontz, professor of history and family studies at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash.

Free and open to the public, all lectures will take place at 7 p.m. in the large community meeting room inside the Arts & Technology building on the FVCC campus. For full presentation descriptions and speaker bios, visit www.fvcc.edu/honorssymposium.