Lectures and Events of Interest

UPCOMING EVENTS:
Ethics and the Making of Cities
A Talk by Aseem Inam
Friday, November 20, 2009 at 6PM
Venue: Simmons Hall (W79) - MPR, (229 Vassar Street, Cambridge MA)

(Event is open to public)
The paradox of urbanism is that those who are most capable of shaping cities (i.e. urban designers, architects, landscape architects) are among the least effective at transforming them. Urbanists possess the unique combination of being able to directly address the four-dimensional issues of place, creative thinking skills, interdisciplinary approaches to problem solving, and engagement with city-building processes on a daily basis. However, urbanists also view cities as the production of material objects, and their singular obsession with form and space renders them impotent in the face of powerful decision-making processes and larger power structures.
Drawing from the work of American pragmatist philosophers Charles Peirce, William James, John Dewey, and Richard Rorty, the talk outlines a conceptual shift to render the practice of urbanism more relevant and effective in the face of critical urban challenges. The shift consists of viewing the city as flux rather than just as object, focusing on consequences rather than just intentions, and design as a creative political act rather than just a form-making exercise. The talk illustrates the conceptual shift with case studies of the author's experiments in urbanism in professional practice and pedagogy. In order to make a meaningful difference in the city, urbanists have to view their creative practices as driven by moral choices and consequential impacts.
Dr. Aseem Inam has practiced as an architect, urban designer and planner in Los Angeles, Montreal, Mumbai, New Delhi, Paris, St. Louis, and Washington DC. Most recently, he led multidisciplinary teams on urbanist initiatives in the Caribbean, California, and on the U.S.-Mexico border. Early in his career, he created and lead the rural habitat development program in Gujarat, India. His essay, Meaningful Urban Design, received an Honorable Mention for the best writing on the future of American urbanism and was published in the Journal of Urban Design, and his book, Planning for the Unplanned: Recovering from Crises in Megacities, was published by Routledge, New York in 2005. In 2009 at MIT, he received the Excellence in Teaching Award in the Department of U rban Studies and Planning, and was selected as an inaugural Fellow at the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values.
The talk is co-sponsored by the Residential Scholars Program at Simmons Hall and the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values, and is supported by a generous contribution from the William R. (1956) and Betsy P. Leitch Endowment.

THE ETHICS INITIATIVE
A series of free-spirited conversations between students and leading experts and faculty, that center on ethical issues, the societal responsibilities of scientists and engineers, and the complex problems we face in technology, education, engineering and science in today's modern world.
Ethics and the Economy (December 2009)
Ecological Intelligence
A Talk by Daniel Goleman Introduced by Deborah Ancona
Thursday, December 3, 2009 at 6PM
Venue: Building 4, Room 370 (77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA)
(Event is open to public)
Daniel Goleman is an internationally known psychologist who lectures frequently to professional groups, business audiences, and on college campuses. Working as a science journalist, Goleman reported on the brain and behavioral sciences for The New York Times for many years. His 1995 book, Emotional Intelligence (Bantam Books) was on The New York Times bestseller list for a year-and-a-half; with more than 5,000,000 copies in print worldwide in 30 languages, and has been a best seller in many countries. Goleman’s latest book is Ecological Intelligence: How Knowing the Hidden Impacts of What We Buy Can Change Everything. The book argues that new information technologies will create “radical transparency,” allowing us to know the environmental, health, and social consequences of what we buy. As shoppers use point-of-purchase ecological comparisons to guide their purchases, market share will shift to support steady, incremental upgrades in how products are made – changing every thing for the better. Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships, was published in 2006. Social intelligence, the interpersonal part of emotional intelligence, can now be understood in terms of recent findings from neuroscience. Goleman’s book describes the many implications of this new science, including for altruism, parenting, love, health, learning and leadership.
Deborah Ancona is the Seley Distinguished Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and Faculty Director of the MIT Leadership Center.Deborah's pioneering research into how successful teams operate has highlighted the critical importance of managing outside the team's boundary as well as inside it. This research has led directly to the concept of X-Teams as a vehicle for driving innovation within large organizations. Her book, X-teams: How to Build Teams That Lead, Innovate, and Succeed was published by Harvard Business School Press in June, 2007.

Deborah's work has also focused on the concept of distributed leadership, and the development of research-based tools, practices, and teaching/coaching models that enable organizations to foster creative leadership at every level. This work was highlighted in a recent article in the Harvard Business Review, In Praise of the Incomplete Leader, February, 2007.

In addition to X-Teams, Deborah's studies of team performance have also been published in the Administrative Science Quarterly, the Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, and the Sloan Management Review. Her previous book, Managing for the Future: Organizational Behavior and Processes (South-Western College Publishing, 1999, 2005) centers on the skills and processes needed in today's diverse and changing organization.

Deborah received her BA and MS in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and her Ph.D. in management from Columbia University. She has served as a consultant on leadership and innovation to premier companies such as AT&T, BP,Credit Suisse First Boston, HP, Merrill Lynch, Newscorp, and Vale.
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Dr. Aseem’s lecture on "Ethics and the Making of Cities," was a remarkable example of the ways in which Architects and Urbanist’s of the 21^st century should be contributing to the form and structure of our communities and cities. Too often do we bear witness to those in such positions of high influence within our noble field, becoming overtly driven by ego, financial gain, and personal agendas.

I most certainly agree with Dr. Aseem. We in the fields of the design and construct of our human environments, must beyond all personal and idealistic concept and theory, become engaged with and holistically aware of the many layers and local color of those places with which we chose to contribute our designs.

By collaboratively approaching challenges and engaging in dialogue with those immediately affected and influenced by the designs to be realized, a more successful urban development project may be built.

Although I must insist, that our urban forms have most certainly been influenced by primitive and failed ideological systems, many geared by capital gain and politics. One such example may be found in the history of the automobile and its continued hinderance upon our sociological and environmental progress. A literal driving mechanism of most urban centers of our world, it continues to cause a great deal of ecological, stuctural, and socialogical damage to the built and unbuilt systems of our society.

I hope to explore this theory further and engage in dialogue with Dr. Aseem in the future.