Forum for Questioning Minds
The Forum for Questioning Minds is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, educational organization dedicated to providing a forum for less heard voices of interest to Utahns.  We meet in the fourth floor conference room of the Salt Lake City Main Library, 210 East 400 South, from 1:45 PM to 4:00 PM on the second and fourth Sundays of each month from September through May, except major holidays.

The links below provide detailed descriptions of upcoming and previous programs.  Upcoming programs become better defined closer to the date of the program.  Please bookmark this page and check back to see the latest lineup.

 

Upcoming Programs

 

January 13, 2008
"Forgotten Victims of Domestic Violence: Male and Same-Sex Victims"
by Tracy Hernandez

Tracy is the Operations and Community Outreach Director for CAPSA (Community Abuse Prevention Services Agency) in Logan. CAPSA is the fifth largest domestic violence shelter in Utah, and serves the communities of Northern Utah and southern Idaho. Tracy has worked with victims of domestic violence and rape for over two years at CAPSA, and oversees all CAPSA’s efforts to increase awareness about domestic violence in Utah. She has undergraduate degrees Political Science and Journalism from Utah State University, and is currently pursuing an MBA at the University of Utah.

This presentation will focus on the “forgotten victims” of domestic violence. In recent years, CAPSA has seen a rise in the number of male victims, and victims in same-sex relationships that come to our shelter and our organization seeking services for domestic violence and rape. All victims of domestic violence face barriers that deter or prevent them from seeking help—this discussion will include information about those barriers, and the additional barriers that male victims and those in same-sex relationships face when seeking help. The discussion will also focus on solutions—how each person can help prevent domestic violence in his/her community, neighborhood, and family, as well as for these forgotten victims.

Suggested Websites:

 

January 27, 2008
"Health Reform in Utah: Where Are We Headed and Are We on the Right Road"
by Judi Hilman and Elizabeth Garbe

Judi Hilman is the Executive Director of the Utah Health Policy Project. She has an MA from Cornell. Before coming to Utah in '99 she directed development efforts at a community rehabilitation agency serving people with disabilities. More recently Judi served as Health Policy Director at Utah Issues, Center for Poverty Research and Action. Her work covers a broad range of policy issues impacting the uninsured, low-income medically underserved, people with disabilities, and ethnic minorities.

Elizabeth Garbe is the Coverage Initiatives Director at the Utah Health Policy Project.She received her Masters in Social Work from the University of Denver. Elizabeth spent six years working at a variety of non-profits serving Wyoming youth. She worked as the Policy Analyst at the Colorado Community Health Network, Colorado’s primary care association and recently moved to Salt Lake to join the Utah Health Policy Project team.

A record number of Utahns are without health coverage. National estimates rank Utah as having a higher than average rate of uninsured residents, 17.4% or 442,000 residents, despite having much higher than average median annual income ($55,179). About the same number are under-insured. Utah is also leading the nation in small businesses dropping health insurance for their employees. From 2000 to 2004, health premiums for Utahns increased 66%, but wages only increased 13%. If nothing is done, health premium costs will surpass household income within 20 years.

This year Utah’s legislature will begin to discuss how Utah should reform its broken health system. Come listen to and discuss what is currently being proposed, an analysis of the proposal and how you can become involved in the conversation.

Suggested Websites:

 

February 10, 2008
"Harm to Home in 2007:  Resettlement of Refugees in Utah by the International Rescue Committee"
by Patrick Poulin

Patrick Poulin is the Resettlement Director for the International Rescue Committee’s (IRC) Salt Lake City Resettlement Office. Mr. Poulin previously worked as the Executive Director of Travelers Aid Society (currently know as The Road Home). He also established a program in Cote d’Ivoire serving women and children refugees fleeing from the civil war in Liberia. He has a Masters in Social Work from the University of Utah and is a licensed clinical social worker. Patrick has served many low-income and vulnerable populations in Utah, including welfare recipients, the homeless, and those with mental illness. Mr. Poulin also served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mali, West Africa in the early 1980s.

"In 2007, the International Rescue Committee resettled 521 refugees from Burundi, Burma, Somalia, Sudan, Iran, Cuba, Liberia, the former Soviet Union, and a myriad of other people who can not return to their homeland due to a well founded fear of persecution or death."

Patrick Poulin, will review the populations resettled in Utah by IRC during 2007. He will discuss the challenges and opportunities assisting these vulnerable populations leaving war torn countries to move “from harm to home” in their new lease for a safe life in the United States. Mr. Poulin will also offer perspectives on recent efforts to increase the capacity to serve refugees in our community.

Founded in 1933, the International Rescue Committee is one of the oldest and largest non-profit, nonsectarian voluntary organization providing relief, protection, and resettlement services to refugees and victims of oppression or violent conflict. The IRC has provided resettlement services in Salt Lake City since 1994.

Suggested Websites:

 

February 24, 2008
"Conversation on Immigration"
by Tony Yapias

Tony is a native of Junin, Peru. In 1981 at the age of 14 he immigrated to the United States. He lived in Evanston, Wyoming where he attended High School. He received a bachelor’s degree in International Relations from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. Currently, Tony is the Scoutreach Director for the Boy Scouts of America in the Great Salt Lake Council serving Latino and ethnic minority youth in After-School programs. In 2003, he was appointed to Director for the State Office of Hispanic Affairs by Governor Michael O. Leavitt. He was the first Peruvian to be appointed to this position. He continued to serve as Director under Governor Olene Walker until 2005. As Hispanic Affairs Director, he was responsible for advising the governor on issues that impact the Latino community.

Since September 11, 2001, the immigration debate in Utah has increased in intensity. Prior to September 11, 2001, Governor Michael Leavitt and the Utah legislature passed a law to allow undocumented immigrants to obtain a Utah driver’s license. Later in 2002, the Legislature passed HB-144 which allows undocumented immigrants who graduated from a Utah high school to continue their higher education in Utah’s public colleges and universities at an “in-state tuition” rate. Since 2002, dozens of proposed bills targeting immigrants and reversing these positions have been presented without success at the Legislature, although with each passing year, the debate has become stronger. This presentation with Tony Yapias will review the history of current immigration policy, its impact on undocumented workers and the U.S. economy and society, and will encourage discussion of the consequences of various legal measures currently proposed.

Suggested Websites:


March 9, 2008
"Thinking about the Unthinkable & Talking about the Tough Stuff: Making Sense of Nuclear Weapons & Other Big Issues That Confront Us"
by George Cheney with Lou Borgenicht, Mary Dickson, Danielle Endres and Annette Rose

George Cheney is Professor of Communication, Director of Peace and Conflict Studies, and Director of the Barbara and Norman Tanner Human Rights Center, at the University of Utah. His Ph.D. dissertation (Purdue University, 1985) focused on the U.S. Catholic Bishops’ 1983 pastoral letter on nuclear arms. He came to Utah in 2002, after having held faculty positions at the universities of Illinois, Colorado and Montana. George has taught, lectured and conducted research in Europe, Latin America, and New Zealand. George has authored or co-authored six books, including the award-winning Values at Work, a study of worker co-ops in the Basque region of Spain, and over 80 articles and chapters. He is at work on three more books: Just a Job? Communication, Ethics, and Professional Life; The International Communication Association Handbook of Communication Ethics; and A Rhetoric for Peace.

Today’s overwhelming issues include nuclear arms and other weapons of mass destruction, terrorism and the war on terror, global warming or climate change, epidemics, immigration, and global poverty and economic disparity. Many of us feel paralyzed or fearful in even contemplating these issues. In fact, most citizens simply avoid the issues altogether or occasionally trivialize or joke about them.

This Utah Humanities Council Public Square presentation uses the issue of nuclear weapons as entrée into a broader examination of “unthinkable” and “non-discussible” issues. In fact, “nukes” are once again on the minds of the citizens of Utah as well as for others around the United States, an issue largely dormant from the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 until just the past couple of years.

"We, the group of five who offer this presentation and discussion, wish to revitalize and enhance the public discussion and debate in Utah surrounding nuclear weapons and, by extension, encourage people to think and talk about other issues that vex us. Hopefully, this treatment of nuclear arms and the call to confront other pressing issues can be part of an ongoing democratic conversation in Utah."


References and Resources:

  • Boyer, Paul. (1985). By the bomb’s early light: American thought and culture at the dawn of the atomic age. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

  • Caldicott, H. (1986). Missile envy: The arms race and nuclear war (special rev. ed.). Toronto/ New York: Bantam Books.

  • Cirincione, J. (2007). Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons. New York: Columbia University Press.

  • DeGroot, G. (2005). The bomb: A life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

  • Gallagher, C. (1993). American ground zero :The secret nuclear war. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

  • Lennon, A. T. J., ed. (2002) Contemporary nuclear debates: Missile defense, arms control, and arms races in the twenty-first century. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

  • Loeb, P. (1986). Nuclear culture. Philadelphia: New Society Publishers.

  • Rampton, S., & Stauber, J. (2002). Trust us, we’re experts. New York: Tarcher/Putnam.

  • Rhodes, R. (1986). The making of the atomic bomb. New York: Simon & Schuster.

  • Rhodes, R. (2007). Arsenals of folly: The making of the nuclear arms race. New York: Knopf.

  • Schell, J. (1982/2000). The fate of the earth. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

  • Schell, J. (2007). The seventh decade: The new shape of nuclear danger. New York: Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt.

  • Thomson, D. B. (2001). A guide to nuclear arms control treaties. Los Alamos, NM: Los Alamos Historical Society.

  • Weart, S. R. (1988). Nuclear fear: A history of images. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.


April 13, 2008
"Great Salt Lake and Mars"
by Bonnie Baxter


April 27, 2008
"Fire Issues in Utah and the West"
by Jeremy Bailey

 

Previous Programs

December 9, 2007
"Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment"
by Dr. Brian Moench

November 18, 2007
"Climate Change and Utah"
by Jim Davis

October 28, 2007
"Beyond Capitalism - A Vision to Guide and Inspire Us Now"
by Michael Albert

October 14, 2007
"Does God Exist? A Debate"
by Mark Hausam and David Keller with Deen Chatterjee as moderator

September 23, 2007
"A More Genuine Democracy - Teaching Political Literacy to Rejuvenate America"
by Jeffrey Nielsen

September 9, 2007
"Transportation Planning & Stronger Communities"
by Keith Bartholomew, University of Utah College of Architecture & Planning

 

Previous Seasons' Programs

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