Western Oregon Journal

Watch out all you Wolves; the whales are coming to campus.

The Whale in Science and Culture Symposium will arrive on Tuesday, Jan. 18 and will go through Friday, Jan. 21. The event, consisting of lectures and films, is sponsored by the Jensen Arctic Museum and free to the public. All events will take place in the Hamersly Library.

Tuesday, Jan. 18, a welcome speech by Western’s Dr. Henry Hughes will happen at noon., followed by a lecture from Dr. Lowell Spring, entitled “The Living Whale” at 12:15 p.m. The first day of the symposium concludes with a film, Moby Dick, at 6 p.m.

Wednesday’s celebrations include two lectures and an additional movie. The first lecture, at noon, will be given by Dr. Karen Haberman and is titled, “Krill, Whales and the Cold Food Chain.” Haberman is an associate professor of biology here at Western.

At 12:45 p.m. Ken Lytwyn will speak of “Whales in Captivity.” Lytwyn is a Senior Marine Mammologist at the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport, Ore. He has been at the Aquarium for the past 15 years and has trained all sorts of creatures from a harbor seal to a killer whale. The 2003 independent movie, Whale Rider, will conclude the day at 6 p.m.

On Thursday, two lectures will take place. Dr. John Byrne will institute the first lecture titled, “International Negotiation toward the Moratorium on Whaling.” This speech takes place at noon and will be immediately followed by Dr. Bruce Mate and his lecture titled, “Tracking and Studying Whales in the Open Ocean.”Dr. Byrne is the former president of Oregon State University and past director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Mate is the director of Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Program.

The festivities conclude on Friday and include a drawing on whales and three lectures. At noon, a Mask raffle drawing will take place. After this, a lecture from Dr. Hughes titled, “Why the Whale: Moby Dick and other Whales in North American Literature,” will occur. Dr. Hughes is a professor here at Western in the English department. 

Beginning at 1 p.m. is a lecture conducted by Ron Lovell, on “Researching and Writing the Novel, Dead Whales Tell No Tales.”  Lovell has written 13 textbooks and two other novels.  The celebration concludes with a lecture from Larry Ahavakana at 1:45 p.m. on “Whaling in Barrow, Alaska.” Ahavakana is a critically acclaimed Alaskan artist who uses whale images often in his painting and pictures.

If you don’t know anything about whales, don’t feel discouraged about coming to the event. “All average people are welcome,” Hughes said. “The speakers are here to share information with students and professors from very different fields.”

Even though this is the first Whale Symposium to be held at Western, Dr. Hughes hopes to see more of its kind in the future.

“Perhaps this is a sign of more good things to come,” he said.

Also taking place in the Hamersly Library by curator Henry Hughes is the exhibit “Whiteness” on the second floor gallery. The exhibit features white as the powerful symbol of the human imagination and will run until March.

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