Contemporary Issues

Every year Coe hosts its annual Contemporary Issues Forum. This year the speaker was Jared Diamond, an evolutionary biologist, professor of physiology and geology and Pullitzer-prize wining author of the books Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. His talk chronicled the history of failed societies and he tried making a parallel to past societies who have outspent their resources and our world society doing the same today.
After his lecture there was a question/answer time where he requested that only people under the age of 30 ask questions because it was going to be us who has to deal with this problem. I even managed to get a question in about global governance (my mind never stops thinking of things in terms of political science!)
After the lecture and question/answer there was a reception for students and faculty to meet Prof. Diamond. Not too many students took advantage of this opportunity so myself about about 15 other students had much access to him and hung out and discussed the environment, politics, ecology and biology with a world-class scholar over some light snacks. Not a bad night.