LEWISTON, Idaho – Lewis-Clark State College alum Pasang Y. Sherpa will give a talk on “Indigenous Perspectives on Climate Change in the Himalayas” on Sept. 18 at 1:30 p.m., which will be one of the highlight events during the college’s Multicultural Awareness Week.
The week is set for Sept. 17-20 and will feature different events, including a food and culture potluck, a Constitutional Day panel, and a Native American Friendship Lunch. All events are free and open to the public.
Sherpa’s talk will be held in Room 100 of Meriwether-Lewis Hall.
Sherpa, who is a 2007 graduate of LC State, will open with a discussion on globe indigeneity and indigenous perspectives on Himalayan communities. She will give an overview of climate change effects, focusing on the melting of glaciers. She will also discuss how anthropological research can better assist in responding to contemporary ecological challenges.
Sherpa is an anthropologist from Nepal. Her primary research areas include human dimensions of climate change, indigeneity, and development in the Himalayas. She is also working on a project about the dispersion of Himalayan people from the boarders of Nepal and Tibet to the United States and South Asia.
Sherpa earned her master’s and Ph.D. from Washington State University. She then lectured at Penn State and was a postdoctoral fellow at The New School in New York. She received the 2014 Senior Fellowship award from the Association of Nepal and Himalayan Studies, and is a fellow of the Society for Applied Anthropology. She currently a visiting assistant professor at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, and she is affiliated with the South Asia Center at the University of Washington.
Multicultural Awareness Week kicks off with a Native American Friendship Lunch on Sept. 17 at 11:30 a.m.-1:15 p.m. at the Pi’amkinwaas Center, located at 1112 7th St. in Lewiston.
That evening, there will be a Constitution Day panel discussion on “the viability of third parties in the United States of American and beyond” at 6-7:30 p.m. in Room 115 of Sacajawea Hall. A panel of LC State professors – Leif Hoffmann and Kylee Britzman in political science, Amanda Van Lanen in history, and Gene Straughan in criminal justice – will open the discussion. They will also talk about how other electoral systems, such as proportional representation and mixed-member proportional presentation, allow for a greater number of parties to be successfully elected to a parliamentary body. After the panel discussion, the audience will be invited to participate.
On Sept. 19, LC State international students will give presentations on their country of origin. It will be held at 3:30-5 p.m. at a campus location yet to be finalized.
The week wraps up with a food and culture potluck, which is at 6-7 p.m. on Sept. 20 at the Williams Conference Center. Persons attending are asked to bring a covered dish and there will be food samples from around the world.
Multicultural Awareness Week is sponsored by the following at LC State: Anthropology Club; Humanities Division; International Programs; Native American, Minority & Veterans’ Services; Native American Club; the dean for the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences; Social Sciences Division; and the Spanish Club.