Indigenous Scholar to Speak at UMaine

Contact: Sara Willett, 581-1414

ORONO — The UMaine Division of Lifelong Learning and the Wabanaki Center will present Oren Lyons, professor emeritus of American studies at State University of New York at Buffalo, author, environmental and human rights activist and a member of the Onondaga Nation, as plenary speaker during a week-long visit to campus, Nov. 2-10.

Lyons, a UMaine Visiting Libra Diversity Professor funded through the Office of the Provost and made possible by a gift from Elizabeth B. Noyce, will speak about global warming, the doctrine of discovery, contemporary Native American issues and indigenous language on Nov. 5 at 7 p.m. in the Donald P. Corbett Business Building, Room 100. The plenary address is free and open to the public.

Lyons is the inaugural Division of Lifelong Learning Visiting Diversity Libra Professor, and will spend the week visiting classes in Orono and at the Hutchinson Center in Belfast. He also will visit with members of the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy communities.

A life-long lacrosse player inducted into the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1993, Lyons also will give a Lacrosse presentation with his son Rex on Friday, Nov. 6 at 1:30 p.m. at the Student Recreation and Fitness Center.

Additional sponsors of the Visiting Libra Diversity Professorship include Maine EPSCoR and the Prisk Fund.