The 30th Annual Krost Symposium
Two Americas: Income Inequality
November 18-19, 2009 10 a.m., Wednesday, Nov. 18
Chapel of the Abiding Presence
Sister Susan Mika 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, Nov. 18
Jackson Auditorium
Keynote address by Barbara Ehrenreich, author of
Nickel and Dimed 9:30 a.m., Thursday, Nov. 19
Jackson Auditorium
Q&A with Ehrenreich 10:30 a.m., Thursday, Nov. 19
Jackson Auditorium
Panel Discussion on income inequality issues Moderated by Dr. Justin Dubas, TLU Assistant Professor of Economics
Participants confirmed thus far:
- Hal Adams, Vice President, Retail Merchnadising, Valero Retail Holdings, Inc.
- Don Baylor, Center for Public Policy Priorities, Austin (Mr. Baylor is senior policy analyst for economic opportunity at this “think tank”/lobbying organization).
- Susan Mika, Socially Responsible Investing Coalition, San Antonio (Sr. Mika is an activist on shareholder actions for corporate social responsibility, and much of her recent work has concerned fairness of CEO compensation compared to worker pay and working conditions).
- Carolyn J. Newman, President and Co-founder, Audimation Services, Inc., TLU Alumnus and member of the TLU Business Executive Advisory Council.
11:45 a.m., Thursday, Nov. 19
Hein Dining Hall
Luncheon (In conjunction with the regularly scheduled Faculty/Staff Luncheon)
$6 – cash only
$5 – with Bulldog Bucks
Supporting Activities
TLU Dramatic Media Production Nickel and Dimed By Joan Holden
A staged reading
Based on
Nickel and Dimed, on Not Getting by in America by Barbara Ehrenreich
Tuesday, Nov. 17, 7:30 p.m.
Thursday, Nov. 19, 7:30 p.m.
Friday, Nov. 20, 2:30 p.m.
Barbara Ehrenreich's best-selling, firsthand account of life in low-wage America is vivid and witty, yet always deeply sobering. Joan Holden's stage adaptation is a focused comic epic shadowed with tragedy, introducing us to a cast of characters who wage their life struggles with a gallantry that humbles Barbara, and the audience. The play shows us the life a third of working Americans now lead, and makes us angry that anyone should have to live it.
Krost Symposium Films
Wupperman Little Theatre
Free - Wednesday, Sept. 30, 7 p.m. – MOVIE: Pursuit of Happyness
Facilitator: Carolyn Turner
The rousing, true-life story of a single dad who went from living on the streets to owning his own brokerage firm is brought to the big screen. Set in San Francisco in the early 1980s, the film charts the hard times and eventual comeback of Chris Gardner, a suddenly single salesman who has custody of his son, but finds that providing for the two of them is a challenge in the increasingly unstable economic climate. He struggles as life continues to offer him setbacks.
- Wednesday, Oct. 28, 7 p.m. – MOVIE: Bread and Roses
Facilitators: Tim Barr and Brenci Patino
Leftist filmmaker Ken Loach directs this grim drama set about the plight of seemingly invisible office cleaners. who often earn as little as $6 a day without benefits. The film opens as Maya, a young Mexican, is reuniting with her older sister Rosa in Los Angeles after a harrowing cross-border journey. Rosa sets her sister up first with a job as a barmaid, which Maya soon quits after getting repeatedly groped, and then as a janitor. When her boss demands one month's salary as "commission," Maya happens upon Sam Shapiro, a muckraking lawyer and union agitator. This film, which was screened in competition at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival, is remarkable for its prescience – it was shown a month after a massive janitor's strike ground L.A.'s business community to a halt.
- Wednesday, Nov. 11, 7 p.m. – MOVIE: Frozen River
Facilitator: Dr. Angie Sauer
The themes of gender, race and poverty are central to the film, but in a new way (the border used for smuggling illegal immigrants is the New York-Quebec border and the race issue revolves around Mohawks). This movie takes place in the days before Christmas near a little-known border crossing on the Mohawk reservation between New York State and Quebec. Here, the lure of fast money from smuggling presents a daily challenge to single moms who would otherwise be earning minimum wage. Two women - one white, one Mohawk, both single mothers faced with desperate circumstances - are drawn into the world of border smuggling across the frozen water of the St. Lawrence River.
