CWA Don't Miss List

Last year I was lucky enough to have my spring break match up with The Conference on World Affairs. I had volunteered earlier in the year with the students in the marketing department, tweeting and blogging about panelists, panels and just generally building a buzz.  During the conference I volunteered as a venue manager and met many of the participants including Andy Ihnatko, who let me play with his first run iPad, Ramin Bahrani, Shodekeh, Roger and Chaz Ebert, Seth Shostak and Liz Weir.  It was an amazing week.

Last year I posted a not-so-short list of can’t miss panels… many of which I missed due to venue managing.  But I did hit a couple.  I won’t get to any panels this year, which is a major bummer. So I decided to make a dream list of all the panels I wish I could go to…

Monday

9:00 UMC Aspen Room

1116 Why Jazz Matters

(There are so many reasons. Will they reference the Ken Burns documentary?!)

9:00 UMC 235

1117 Citizen Journalists: Rights and Responsibilities

Moderated by my favorite editorialist, Erika Stutzman

(Hopefully there will be some discussion about the use of Twitter during the Four-Mile Fire.)

1:00 UMC Center Ballroom

1513 Sex: Good for You is Good for Me

(No brainer)

4:30 Visual Arts Complex 1B20

1851 Storytelling- From My Grandmother’s Lips: Stories Hidden in the Pockets of My Ancestors

(The storytelling panels are a perennial favorite of mine.)

4:30 Chem 140

1865 The Wild, Wild Web: We Are All Outlaws Online

(We are?! Really? I had no idea.)

Tuesday

9:30 ATLAS Black Box

2164 Pop Culture: Where is the Sacred

(Seems to me, there’s no sacred in pop culture. It’s pop culture. What did you expect?)

11:00 ATLAS Black Box

2311 Tinker Bell’s New Cleavage: Digital Enhancement and Body Image

(Working with young girls has made me incredibly aware of the digital images we bombard our children with daily. Also, should a fairy really have boobs?)

12:30 ATLAS Black Box

2467 Life Outside Facebook

(What do you post on Facebook if you’re not living your life because you’re so busy posting on Facebook?)

2:00 UMC Center Ballroom

2611 Swarm Activism: Social Media and Revolution

(I love that the conference is embracing the growth of social media this year!)

2:00 UMC West Ballroom

2612 Entrepreneurs Mean Business

Moderated by Bobby Stuckey, co-owner of Frasca, Pizzeria Locale and Il Caffe. Three of my favorite places in this whole town!

(Bobby is such a character. It’s really fun to watch him try to stay out of the conversation and just moderate!)

3:30 Duane Physics G1B30

2762 Katy, Gaga, Ke$ha: The New Feminist Role Models

(These are the new feminist role models? Says who? And what are they teaching our kids about feminism?)

Wednesday

9:00 UMC Aspen Room

3114 The Future of Language from Spanglish to Cyberspeak

(This fascinates me.  Especially since the Oxford Dictionary included a definition for <3 this year.)

12:00 UMC West Ballroom

3413 Dear Teenage Me: It Got Better

(I wonder if this will sort of be like that MTV show…)

1:00 ATLAS Black Box

3513 It May Be a Sputnik Moment, but Science Fairs are Lagging

(Remember how cool science fairs were? Do these panelists have ideas for how to bring them back?)

1:00 Macky Auditorium

3514 WikiLeaks: Freedom of Speech or Chaos

(Not a popular opinion I’m sure, but I think it’s chaos…)

3:30 UMC 235

3762 What’s Wrong with American Sports

(Given that I’m a sports fanatic I think this would be really interesting!)

4:30 ATLAS Black Box

3863 Language of Love

(I love these open-ended panels. This could go so many different places!)

5:00 UMC 235

3912 Labor: Forming a More Perfect Union

Moderated by Cathy Comstock, professor at CU Boulder

(Given the state of WI and the fact that I’m a NEA/ CEA member I’m really interested in this.)

Thursday

11:00 UMC East Ballroom

4315 Humor

(Again, so many places this could go!)

11:00 UMC 235

4316 Apps, Games and Brains

(Will there be talk of game theory in the app world?)

12:30 UMC Center Ballroom

4463 Faith and Critical Thinking

(These two frequently seem to be mutually exclusive so this could produce a heated debated between the panelists and the public.)

2:00 UMC 235

4612 Genetics, the Future is Now

(I’m hoping the panelists discuss how to use these tools responsibly.)

3:30 ATLAS Black Box

4764 The Leisure Economy: Tourism, Entertainment and Sports

Moderated by Barry Siff, local athlete/ legend and a friend of my cousin Robby.

(In a rough economy how do we still manage to travel and play?)

Friday

9:00 Eaton Humanities 150

5111 Building a Sustainable Green Economy

(Seems to me this shouldn’t be too hard. We’re just over thinking it.)

9:00 UMC Aspen Room

5117 Raising This Generation’s Children

(This combination of panelists is fantastic. It should be highly enlightening.)

11:00 UMC East Ballroom

5311 Public Edjukashun Is Failing US

(I would really like to be at this panel and just hear their thoughts… probably better that I can’t go since I’ll be busy teaching public school.)

12:30 ATLAS 100

Everything Sounds Smarter and Sexier with a British Accent

(I mean, duh!)

1:00 ATLAS Black Box

5516 Art on the Fly: The Importance of Play

(I’m sure this is more about improvisational music, but I love the idea of “play” being “art”.)

2:30 Macky Auditorium

5650A Plenary Duet- Life Matters

David Crosby and Graham Nash

Moderated by Bret Saunders, KBCO morning DJ, better known as The Sage.

(How could you miss this? Crosby and Nash in Boulder? It’s too perfect…)