The University of Maine Honors Program is pleased to announce its first annual Honors lecture and reception on Friday, February 14, 2020 on the UMA-Bangor campus at 1:00 pm, with a snow date of February 28, 2020.
The lecture will be delivered by Dr. Linda Silka of the University of Maine.
Dr. Silka is a social and community psychologist by training, with much of her work focusing on building community-university research partnerships. She was the former Director of the University of Maine’s Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center and is now Senior Fellow at the University of Maine’s George Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions. Silka has written extensively on the challenges and opportunities of building research partnerships with diverse and has consulted internationally on how to build community-university research partnerships.
Silka was a member of SSI’s Knowledge-to-Action (K↔A) Collaborative, a group that studied how to better align university research with community needs. The K↔A Collaborative investigated ways to overcome the barriers between knowledge and action and build partnerships between Maine’s academic institutions and diverse stakeholders in order to better solve sustainability challenges throughout the state.
In addition to her teaching and research duties, Silka is a Member and Fellow of both the American Psychological Association and the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. She has previously served as the Director of the Center for Family, Work, and Community at the University of Massachusetts. Silka has been published in multiple peer-reviewed publications including the Journal of the New England Board of Higher Education, Australasian Journal of Community Engagement, and Gateways: International Journal of Community Research and Engagement.
Dr. Silka will speak on “Sustainability: If We Are to Make a Difference, We Need the Insights from Every Discipline,” reflecting the interdisciplinary studies focus on the UMA Honors Program curriculum. The lecture will take place in room 124, Eastport Hall on the UMA-Bangor campus. It will be preceded by a recognition of UMA Honors Program students and followed by a reception in the adjacent Huskins Lounge. All students, staff, and faculty are invited to attend.
For more information, please contact Dr. Robert Kellerman at robert.kellerman@maine.edu.