Safety Forum Lecture 3/25

Previous to this panel discussion, VCU students submitted questions about campus safety to be answered by some of the VCU administration, including the Senior VP for Administration, Head of the VCU Police, the Vice Provost, and about 5 others.  Questions asked by students included  things like .."How large is the VCU Police, and how do they compare to the Richmond Police?" and numerous inquiries about the "undesirables" around campus.  Most of the questions asked, were mainly "resolved" by the head of the VCU Police stating that "you shouldn't put yourself in harms way," and other comments of that nature.  The Senior VP for Admin. was full of statistical data, which he used to answer his portion of the questions- for instance, I did not know that there are over 300 emergency phones around campus, and that 56% of all criminal act reports are larceny.  

Dr. Olivia Judson Lecture 3/23

Born in the UK, Olivia Judson moved to the US at the age of 10.  Judson is now an evolutionary biologist at Imperial College London.  She graduated from Stanford University, got her doctorate from Oxford, and worked as a journalist before beginning research on a fellowship at Imperial College London.  It was interesting to find out that she had participated in the television show "Animal Pharm," which she described as a "science documentary musical."- strange?  She mainly spoke about her book, Dr Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation. "Written in the style of a sex-advice column to animals, the book details the variety of sexual practices in the natural world and provides the reader with an overview of the evolutionary biology of sex." All of this was pretty intense, and the lecture style itself was very stiff and matter of fact. Interesting to say the least, but I felt really out of my element.