Winter 2023 Programs

Registration Form for all Winter 2023 Programs


Public:

Massachusetts’ Decarbonization Roadmap, January 24
Financing Higher Education, February 14

Members only:

LIR President’s Forums, January 18 and February 15
Gardners’ Roundtable, January 23-February 6
Doing Good Works in the Community, February 1


Open to the public

Massachusetts’ 2050 Decarbonization Roadmap
How do we get there from here?

Tuesday, January 24, 10:00 a.m., on Zoom

The Decarbonization Roadmap (December 2020) sets the ambitious goal of statewide net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050; i.e., any remaining emissions must be balanced by drawing down CO2 from the atmosphere, via our forests and wetlands. The Roadmap describes the “4 Pillars of Decarbonization” necessary to reach this goal. Martha Hanner will describe the “4 Pillars,” the progress, and the challenges, and then lead a discussion of what are the most effective steps we can undertake here in Western Massachusetts.

Dr. Bruce Kimball on the financing of higher education.

February 14 at 1:30 p.m. on Zoom.

As endowments and fundraising campaigns have skyrocketed in recent decades, critics have attacked higher education for steeply increasing its production cost and price and the snowballing debt of students. In Wealth, Cost, and Price in American Higher Education, Johns Hopkins Press (2023), Bruce A. Kimball and Sarah M. Iler reveal how these trends began 150 years ago and why they have intensified in recent decades.

Dr. Kimball is a preeminent historian of higher education who also recently completed a two volume history of Harvard Law School.


For members only

The programs below are open only to current members of FCLIR. Join today!

LIR President’s Forums

January 18 at 10 a.m. and February 15 at 7 p.m. on Zoom

Has your voice been heard? You sign up for seminars and read the newsletter; you have opinions and ideas about what you like about LIR and about what you wish were different; you have questions. Whatever your degree of engagement with LIR, you and your thoughts are important. Please join LIR President Francie Borden at one of these Zoom sessions to share them.

Gardener’s Roundtable 2023
Native Plants and Their Partners: Birds, Bees and Butterflies

Mondays, January 23, 30 and February 6, 13, 1:30 to 3:30 p.m., on Zoom

Moderated by Margaret Russell and Sherry Wilson

Native Plants partner with birds, bees and butterflies (the wildlife in the book  title) for sustenance for nestlings, pollination for plants and food for baby butterflies (caterpillars). Some partnerships are specific, such as milkweed for monarch butterflies and violets for fritillaries. When chickadee eggs hatch, their parents must find 6,000 to 9,000 insects to feed each brood! Native plants provide the habitat for the insects, especially caterpillars, they require. Native bees, especially bumblebees, are excellent pollinators, as are certain moths — and they are in peril.

We will discuss parts of the book each week. Each participant will also choose a native plant and its wildlife partner, or partners, for a brief presentation. The final session will be planning your own pollinator garden

Required Reading: Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants, by Douglas Tallamy, 2007

This will be the third gardeners’ roundtable Sherry and Margaret have moderated in the winter session.

Doing Good Works in the Community

Wednesday, February 1 at 10:00 a.m. on Zoom

Moderated by Nancy Clune and Tyll van Geel

Come to a round table discussion led by LIR members who add meaning to their own lives by engaging in a variety of volunteer activities in the community. You will be surprised at what many of our members have been doing and you can learn how you might join them in giving back. If you yourself have been or are involved in a non-LIR volunteer activity, please come to share your experiences. This is a good opportunity to recruit volunteers to your favorite community effort.