ΦΒΚ Alpha Association Events

The annual meeting was held Sept. 22, 2018, at the Mount Vernon Canyon Club. Greg Carpenter, Artistic and General Director of Opera Colorado, spoke about  “Behind the Curtain: An Insider’s Look at What It Takes to Produce Opera in Denver.”

Alpha Association members and their guests toured the Ralph L. Carr Colorado Judicial Center.

Frederick M. Lawrence, Secretary and CEO of Phi Beta Kappa, Washington, D.C., and Former President, Brandeis University spoke at the University of Denver on “Speaking about Free Speech: It’s Complicated — Navigating the countervailing demands of free expression and civility, especially on college and university campuses.”

The 2018 annual banquet was held at the Denver Athletic Club. Dr. Marc Bekoff, professor emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, gave a fascinating talk about “The Animal’s Agenda: Freedom, Compassion, Coexistence, and Hope in the ‘Rage of Inhumanity.”’ The science of animal well-being, compassionate conservation, and personal rewilding offer viable solutions for coming to the rescue of other animals. “The time has come —- indeed, it is long overdue —- to use what we know about the fascinating and diverse inner lives of other animals on their behalf.”

Annual meeting at the Denver Athletic Club, with a talk by Associate Professor Eric Frew of the Aerospace Engineering Sciences Department at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Dr. Frew spoke about the use of unmanned aerial vehicles to study severe weather, including tornadoes.

As part of the national society’s Key Connections event, 22 people toured Dinosaur Ridge in Morrison to view 150-million-year-old dinosaur bones encased in sandstone and 100-million-year-old dinosaur tracks from Late Jurassic floodplains and stream channels.

Alpha Association members and their guests enjoyed a private tour of the Alexander Calder exhibit at the Denver Botanic Gardens. American artist Alexander Calder (1898-1976) is considered one of the most influential sculptors of the 20th century and is known for his bold, energetic sculptures. The DBG exhibit — Calder: Monumental — featured iconic works of bolted steel plate that rise in sweeping curves, or that punctuate space with geometric lines, to reveal the artist’s exploration of forms, volumes, and voids. Using shapes that resonate with the natural world, Calder’s large, lively abstractions interact in interesting ways with the surrounding landscape.After the tour members and guests shared a picnic dinner.

Annual Banquet. Alpha Association’s annual banquet was held on Saturday, April 8, 2017 at the famed Briarwood Inn at 1630 8th Street in Golden. Our after dinner speaker was Dr. Elizabeth Campbell (Karlsgodt), an associate professor in the History Department at the University of Denver. She spoke about the legacy of Nazi looting of Jewish art collections during World War II. She included topics from her first book which examined French cultural policy toward the looting during the German occupation, and information from her current book project which focuses on the Allied recovery of art that had been looted from Jewish collections by the Nazis or sold under duress during the Occupation, comparing restitution practices in France, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Tour of “The Living West” Exhibit at History Colorado Center. A afternoon tour of the new History Colorado Center’s current exhibit, “The Living West”. The exhibit had three sections: life in the heyday of Mesa Verde, the 1930’s Dust Bowl, and a display of contemporary life and problems in the Rocky Mountains today.

Annual Meeting. The Alpha Association’s 2013 annual meeting was held after lunch at the Mount Vernon Country Club in Golden. Following the meeting Dr. Peter Warren gave a talk on his work with a Namibian cheetah conservation group, using his photographs as illustrations.