U of I Entomologist To Speak About Honey Bees at the 23rd Annual Phi Beta Kappa Fall Lecture

Sep 23, 2013 6:45 AM

The 23rd annual Phi Beta Kappa Fall Lecture titled “Applied Bee-Nomics: Can Science Save the Honey Bee?” will be held Wednesday, Sept. 25 at 5 p.m. in the Doudna Fine Arts Center Lecture Hall on the campus of Eastern Illinois University in Charleston.

This year’s speaker is Dr. May Berenbaum, professor and head of entomology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She will talk on the precarious relationship between human activity and the survival of the honey bee, an incredibly relevant topic as recent alarming news reports have indicated that millions of honey bees are dying across North America.

Dr. Berenbaum is famous in her own right as an advocate of popular scientific literacy. She is the author of numerous books including “The Earwig’s Tail: A Modern Bestiary of Multi-Legged Legends,” “Bugs in the System: Insects and their Impact on Human Affairs,” and “Buzzwords: A Scientist Muses on Sex, Bugs, and Rock’n’Roll.”

She is also the founder of the Insect Fear Film Festival, which has been held annually at the U of I since 1984, and even inspired a reincarnation of herself as the character Bambi Berenbaum in “The X-Files.”

Dr. Berenbaum was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1996, and received the 1996 Entomological Society of American North Central Branch Distinguished Teaching Award. The University of Southern California awarded her the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement in 2011.

A reception will follow Dr. Berenbaum’s lecture. The event is free and open to the public.
The Phi Beta Kappa Alumni Association of East Central Illinois was formed in 1987 by Dr. Frank McCormick, professor emeritus of English at EIU.

“Dr. McCormick’s vision and indefatigable work for the organization has ensured 25 years of service to the community of Eastern Illinois University and the greater East Central Illinois region,” said Suzie Park, president of the Phi Beta Kappa Association of East Central Illinois. “In its dedication to bringing excellence in scholarly pursuits and opportunities to the public, our organization sponsors the Phi Beta Kappa Fall Lecture to bring an intellectually stimulating lecturer to the EIU campus on an annual basis.”

Past lectures have included “The Dangers of Biosecurity” in relation to the South Korean monster movie “The Host” and “The Sir Walter Disease” as a description of Walter Scott’s influence on American Civil War Reenactment.

The sponsors for this year’s lecture are the Office of the Provost; Booth Library; College of Arts and Humanities; Lumpkin College of Business and Applied Sciences; College of Education and Professional Studies; College of Sciences; The Graduate School; The Honors College; Department of English; Department of History; and Center for the Humanities, all at EIU.

For more information, please visit the Phi Beta Kappa Association of East Central Illinois website at http://castle.eiu.edu/~pbk or contact President Suzie Park at sapark@eiu.edu.