The Meaning of Service (MoS) is a reading and discussion program for Americorps volunteers featuring discussions that use short philosophical and literary texts on the nature of justice, service, and related themes. Meaning of Service presents participants with the opportunity to examine, refine, and regenerate the beliefs underlying their work.

Scholars, barbers, haircuts, and conversation…

Join us for Shop Talk at Ron’s Barber Shop, presented in partnership with the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy at UIC. Special guest Pauline Lipman, Professor of Policy Studies in the College of Education at UIC will discuss her book, High Stakes Education: Inequality, Globalization, and Urban School Reform, which takes a rigorous look at teachers, students, parents, and the Chicago Public School system's policies.

Journey Stories tells how we and our ancestors came to America. From Native Americans to new American citizens and regardless of our ethnic or racial background, everyone has a story to tell.

Our history is filled with stories of people leaving behind everything - families and possessions - to reach a new life in another state, across the continent, or even across an ocean.

Many chose to move, searching for something better in a new land. Others had no choice, like enslaved Africans captured and relocated to a strange land and bravely asserting their own cultures, or like Native Americans already here, who were often violently removed by newcomers.

This exhibition runs from January 30 - March 14, 2010.

Join historian Sarah Marcus and view the history of Chicago through television and film, noting how producers of popular culture have depicted the city and its residents. Using a variety of clips - from Scarface (1932) to The Untouchables (1987), from Studs' Place (1950-51) to Good Times (1974-79) - this presentation follows the camera's focus and reflects on lasting impressions created by flashing images on the screen.

A Road Scholar Program by Tim Engles

Although the advent of "multiculturalism" has greatly expanded the representation of people of color in humanities curricula, few teachers also address to any significant degree the past and present realities of racial whiteness. This talk explains why doing so is important, and it also includes a wide array of suggested materials and methods for doing so.

He lived hard and died young before James Dean made it famous. Few men had as great an impact both in life and in death. On three continents, he founded cities in his name and he thought himself a god. World conqueror, genius, visionary, despot, maniac, alcoholic, and criminal, Alexander's reputation is as complicated now as was his life. The subject of recent movies, documentaries, and novels, Alexander remains a popular topic in all media. This presentation examines the life and legacy of Alexander, even as the United States and NATO fight wars today where once his armies fought.

Journey Stories tells how we and our ancestors came to America. From Native Americans to new American citizens and regardless of our ethnic or racial background, everyone has a story to tell.

Our history is filled with stories of people leaving behind everything - families and possessions - to reach a new life in another state, across the continent, or even across an ocean.

Many chose to move, searching for something better in a new land. Others had no choice, like enslaved Africans captured and relocated to a strange land and bravely asserting their own cultures, or like Native Americans already here, who were often violently removed by newcomers.

This exhibition runs from January 30 - March 14, 2010.

How fast is China rising into a world superpower? With a non-democratic political leadership, 1.3 billion people requiring three meals a day, and a centrally-planned economic system that is among the hardest to reform in the world, how can China make it? To put it another way, how and why is China still rising and not collapsing? This presentation will address these questions by enumerating the economic, geo-political, cultural, and historical significance of China's rise. Learn why the potential of the Chinese has been constantly underestimated.

Ron Johnson from the University of Illinois Extension will talk about, "Being in the green state of mind," along with using native plants and heirloom seeds in your garden.

The Sycamore History Museum presents a series of programs to expand upon themes currently offered in the exhibition, "Memories from the Farm." The series will explore the history of early farming, from Native Americans to John Deere, including a snapshot of the local agricultural history; businesses; clubs; the DeKalb County Fair; women on the farm; the steam show; and other topics, like organic farming, agribusiness, preservation of antique barns, and the challenges of developing and sustaining a family farm.

The announcement that O’Hare International Airport will soon install a full-body scanner prompted this headline from Chicagoist: “Invasion Of The Body Scanners.” With the scanner’s arrival come “both the hope of better security and fear of invasion of privacy,” reported the Chicago Tribune’s Kristen Mack. The high-tech imagining devices “peer through clothing—showing shapes, folds of fat and other anatomical characteristics—to identify possible hidden objects,” Mack wrote.

A Road Scholar Program by Penelope Bingham

Richard Nixon craved cottage cheese with catsup, Ronald Reagan kept his jelly beans handy in the Oval Office, and George H. W. Bush famously refused broccoli. But what would our sixteenth President, Abraham Lincoln, eat? From cornmeal mush in a log cabin on the American Frontier to Charlotte Russe à la Parisienne at the White House, the food on Lincoln's table and the cookbooks of the period shed light on both Lincoln's story and that of the United States. This program invites the audience to celebrate Abraham Lincoln's Bicentennial with the recipe for his Favorite Cake, and to think about this era of unprecedented expansion and turmoil, which set in motion changes in America and to its foodways that continue into the present.

Penelope Bingham holds degrees from Wellesley College and the University of Chicago and has been an avid collector and appraiser of cookbooks for many years. Her personal collection of cookbooks now exceeds well over 2,000 volumes, and she has given numerous programs on American culture and cookbooks to libraries and professional organizations around Illinois.

Student representatives report on the international concerns of their classmates and engage in deeper analysis of alternative policy directions.

The day culminates in a dialogue among students, teachers, elected officials, and policymakers.

Notre Dame Mission AmeriCorps volunteers will discuss 'The History Teacher '& 'Saving the Crippled Boy

The announcement that O’Hare International Airport will soon install a full-body scanner prompted this headline from Chicagoist: “Invasion Of The Body Scanners.” With the scanner’s arrival come “both the hope of better security and fear of invasion of privacy,” reported the Chicago Tribune’s Kristen Mack. The high-tech imagining devices “peer through clothing—showing shapes, folds of fat and other anatomical characteristics—to identify possible hidden objects,” Mack wrote.