Annual Sigal Lecture to feature renowned interfaith activist

This year’s Sigal Lecture, taking place Thursday, March 30, at 7 p.m. in the DeVos Center Loosemore Auditorium, will feature Simran Jeet Singh, a professor of religion at Trinity University and a senior religious fellow with the Sikh Coalition. Singh will be speaking on Islamophobia, the radicalization of religious identities and hate crimes.

Singh will be holding an afternoon worship session on Grand Valley State University’s Allendale Campus prior to his lecture at the DeVos Center. For more information on the worship session, contact Katie Gordon, program manager at the Kaufman Interfaith Institute, at [email protected].

This event is LIB 100/201 approved.

2017 Mosaic Lecture to feature UM professor, Native American mathematician

The 2017 Mosaic Lecture will be given by Robert Megginson, an Alfred F. Thurnau professor at the University of Michigan, Wednesday, March 29, at 7:30 p.m. in Grand Valley State University’s Manitou Hall, Room 122. He will be focusing on the mathematical and counting system used by Native Americans and the historical and cultural issues this system has faced.

The Mosaic Lecture series is a celebration of different cultures and societies and the contributions they have made to the field of mathematics. Following Megginson’s lecture, there will be a dessert reception. This event is LIB 100/201 approved.

GV named ‘Voter Friendly Campus’

Grand Valley State University has recently received the “Voter Friendly Campus” designation from the Campus Vote Project and the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators. GVSU is one of 83 universities across the country to receive the award.

The award is given to universities that planned and administered practices on their campuses that encouraged voter participation among students and helped students to register to vote in the 2016 general election. During the fall of 2016, GVSU held about 16 voter drives in an effort to register students and broke the record for the university with the most registration applications submitted in a single day at the secretary of state mobile unit.

Talk to focus on Spanish women traversing Atlantic in 18th century

Author Allyson Poska will be speaking about her newest book, “Reconsidering the Spanish Atlantic: How Women’s Lives Reframe Spain’s Early Modern Empire,” Monday, March 27, at 4 p.m. in Grand Valley State University’s Holton-Hooker Learning and Living Center Multipurpose Room.

In addition to being an author, Poska is a history professor and the director of women and gender studies at the University of Mary Washington.

Her book talks about a Spanish plan that recruited poor women and their families to settle a colony in Patagonia, a region of Argentina. The book focuses on the women’s journey across the Atlantic and the hardships they ran into while on the ocean.

Poska will be speaking on the book and the role of women during imperialism in 18th-century Europe. This event is LIB 100/201 approved.