Popular UW Saturday University Program Returns to Cody March 28

International research at the University of Wyoming, with links to Wyoming issues, is the focus of UW’s popular outreach program Saturday University in Cody March 28.

UW will bring three members of its award-winning faculty to the Buffalo Bill Center of the West’s Coe Auditorium to share global research with Wyoming relevance. The Saturday University program will lead participants on a journey around the world, looking at women’s suffrage, armaments and habitats -- all issues that resonate on the Wyoming landscape.

Doors open at 8:30 a.m. for coffee and doughnuts. A free lunch will follow the presentation, with a roundtable discussion with the program’s speakers. The program is free and open to the public.

In its 13th year, Saturday University is a collaborative program that connects popular UW and Wyoming community college professors with lifelong learners. Offered 10 times this year -- twice each in Jackson, Gillette and Sheridan, and once in Cody, Green River, Pinedale and Rock Springs -- Saturday University is sponsored by the university, Wyoming community colleges and local communities.

The Cody program is sponsored by UW’s Office of Engagement and Outreach, UW’s Global Engagement Office’s Center for Global Studies, the Buffalo Bill Center of the West and the Rocky Mountain Power Foundation.

Listed below are program times, topic descriptions and professors lecturing:

-- 9 a.m.: “The Visual Propaganda of Women’s Suffrage: Legacies in Wyoming, New Zealand and Australia,” Colleen Denney, Gender and Women’s Studies Program professor.

Denney will discuss women’s suffrage monuments around the world. She will share students’ service-learning experiences on women’s activism and the advancement of women’s rights.

-- 10 a.m.: “The Armed Man: A Figure in Mexican Cultural Politics,” Nicholas Crane, Department of Geography assistant professor.

Since the 1910 revolution, Mexicans in multiple sectors have revered the armed man as an embodiment of authenticity and masculinity.

“In the drug war, that figure remains prominent and problematic,” Crane says.

As American armaments flow south from the United States, and drug-war migrants flee north, Crane will discuss the circulation of this figure for what it shows about cultural dynamics in greater Mexico, including the borderlands.

-- 11 a.m.: “Fragmenting Habitats and Human-Elephant Conflicts in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India,” Ramesh Sivanpillai, Wyoming Geographic Information Science Center senior research scientist.

In the burgeoning manufacturing and economic hub of Coimbatore -- a city in Tamil Nadu, India -- development encroaches on wildlife corridors.

“Now, elephants raid crop fields, resulting in infrastructure and economic losses, and in human and elephant deaths,” Sivanpillai says.

From his work with stakeholders, Sivanpillai will discuss the measures available to protect investment and minimize casualties.