EVENT SCHEDULE

5:30: Welcoming Remarks by Karen Williams, Dean of The University of Arizona Libraries

5:45: Brief remarks from our guest elected officials Tucson Mayor Jonathon Rothschild and Pima County Board of Supervisors Chairperson, Richard Elias

6:00: Presentation by Meg Weesner, retired National Park Service Ranger

6:45: Reception

Welcome to the opening event for the “Wilderness Act: Arizonans Keeping It Wild for 50 Years” exhibition.

 It has been a great pleasure to work with my co-curator and tonight’s featured speaker, Meg Weesner,  on this exhibit, which celebrates the 50^th Anniversary of the signing of the Wilderness Act and acknowledges the work of three key figures in the environmental movement: Stewart Udall, Morris K. Udall, and Edward Abbey, as well as the works of early and modern wilderness thinkers and writers.

I’d like to thank  Kevin Dahl, program manager of the field office of the National Parks Conservation Association, and Special Collections student assistant Jarrod Mingus,  for their assistance with the exhibit. Curating this exhibit was indeed a labor of love,  and a true team effort!

Thanks also to  the Friends of the University Library and the Dean of the Library, Karen Williams for their support. 

I hope you take some time tonight to examine the documents and photos and to read the quotes and descriptions in each of the exhibit cases. I’m sure you will be pleasantly surprised to learn how fortunate we Arizonans are to have so much wilderness in our midst.

In gratitude,

Bob Diaz

Exhibits and Events Coordinator

Special Collections

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO OF THIS EVENT HERE. (Program starts at 14 minutes into the hour).

This panel discussion is the second event being offered in conjunction with Special Collections’ exhibit, “Tucson: Growth, Change and Memories.” The exhibit, which explores various aspects of Tucson’s history and growth as an urban community, opens on Aug. 17 and runs through Jan. 14, 2016. The panel features an eclectic group of four Tucsonans, remembering life from the 1950s onward. Joining us to share their stories will be former City Councilwoman Molly McKasson, business owner Katya Peterson, newspaper columnist Ernesto Portillo, Jr., and Lydia Otero, Professor of Mexican American Studies.

Click here to listen to the program (it begins at 52:15 after the hour).

From the Special Collections website: “This lecture by renowned writer and professor Dr. Thomas E. Sheridan, is the opening event for Special Collections’ new exhibition, “Tucson: Growth, Change, and Memories.” The exhibition explores various aspects of Tucson’s history and growth as an urban community.

Sheridan is a Research Anthropologist at the Southwest Center, which is dedicated to documenting and interpreting the region’s natural and human cultures. He also serves as Professor of Anthropology in the University of Arizona School of Anthropology. He has conducted ethnographic and ethnohistoric research in the Southwest and northern Mexico since 1971 and directed the Mexican Heritage Project at the Arizona Historical Society from 1982-1984. He is the author of a number of works about the history of the region, including “Los Tucsonenses: The Mexican Community in Tucson, 1854-1941” and “Arizona: A History,” now in its second edition.

The evening’s lecture focuses on changes wrought in the Mexican community in the past 75 years as the result of rapid urbanization. The lecture will be followed by a reception.”

“Visions of the Borderlands: Three Women Writers Share Their Stories”, featured the writers Denise Chavez, Patricia Preciado Martin, and Natalie Diaz. The program can be listened to in its entirety below.

Thursday, February 2, 2017 – 6:00pm

Click here to listen to the audio of program

From the UA News Service:

“Denise Chávez, Natalie Díaz and Patricia Preciado Martin are three celebrated authors whose novels, poems and oral histories provide unique perspectives and indigenous visions of the borderlands. Each of these writers will present samplings of their works that will broaden understanding of and appreciation for borderlands communities.

Chávez, a native of Las Cruces, New Mexico is a novelist (“The Last of the Menu Girls,” “Loving Pedro Infante,” “The King and Queen of Comezon”), performance artist and bookseller whose award-winning works offer a portrayal of life in the U.S.-Mexico border region from a female, Mexican American perspective. Díaz, a native of Needles, California, grew up on the Fort Mohave Indian Reservation. She is a poet whose work “When My Brother Was an Aztec” has been awarded the Nimrod/Hardman Pablo Neruda Prize. Preciado Martin is a native Tucsonan, whose oral histories describe both urban and rural life in southwest Arizona as seen through the eyes of working class, Mexican American people”