Graves Lecture Series

The Graves Lecture Series is a forum for speakers of many interests and disciplines. Since 2006, the series has hosted speakers who present on historical, cultural, artistic, and scientific areas. Presentations take place at the Mari Sandoz High Plains Heritage Center Atrium. Attendance is free, and community members are welcome. For more information about the Graves Lecture Series, please contact College Relations at collegerelations@csc.edu.

Graves Lecture Series Schedule

7 p.m., Oct. 21, 2025: Kevin Coy Jr. presents “Rooted in Resilience”

7 p.m., Oct. 28, 2025: Dave Collins presents “Game Day on Air: A Broadcaster’s Playbook”

7 p.m., Nov. 18, 2025: Dr. Clint Evrard and Sutton Pohlman present “Type II Diabetes and its Effect on Insulin Receptors”

Previous Graves Lecture Series Presentations

Many presentation recordings are available on the CSC YouTube channel in the Graves Lecture Series playlist.

The Graves Lecture Series is named in honor of Dr. Dorset Graves, who was a member of the CSC faculty for 32 years. He retired in 1990, and served as an an adjunct faculty member until 2005. Graves was chair of the CSC Division of Language and Literature for 29 years. Graves died in 2012.

The Graves Lecture Series began in 2006, led by Milton Wolf, director of the library, with much assistance from Shawn Hartman, outreach services librarian. Wolf said the series will be a “forum for speakers who represent the renaissance of ideas under the sun, the synthesis of analysis, the quest for the holy grail of understanding.” He named the series to honor Graves “as an inspiration to scholarship, civility, and the ideal of wisdom.”

After Wolf‘s death in 2012, Hartman continued to manage the series until her retirement in 2025. Starting with the Fall 2025 semester, the Graves Lecture Series was managed by the College Relations team, with an aim to continue the academic focus that had been established nearly 20 years earlier.

Date Presenter Presentation
2006-08-29 Dr. Dorset Graves The Pleasures of Finding Out
2006-09-12 Dr. Kathy Bahr The Persistence of Gothic Romance in Contemporary Culture
2006-09-26 Dr. Lois Veath  
2006-10-10 Dr. George Griffith  
2006-10-24 Dr. Mike Cartwright  
2006-11-07 Ann Krejci  
2007-01-16 Dr. Brad Wilburn Virtues of Improvement
2007-01-30 Dr. Chuck Butterfield Wildfire Ecology and Nature’s Fecundity
2007-02-13 Dr. Mike Leite The Fossils Speak of an Incredible Journey
2007-02-27 Dr. Ron Weedon Medicinal Plants of the Midwest
2007-03-20 Sarah Polak Crazy Horse
2007-03-27 Dr. Robert McEwen Poetry Reading
2007-04-03 Sarah Polak Stolen Art
2007-09-25 Con Marshall From Sparks to Park
2007-10-09 Derek Goodwin Buffalo Soldiers
2007-10-23 Mary Donahue Following Cairns: An Artist’s Journey with Rocks and Time
2007-11-06 Don Holst Aesthetics and Sports
2008-01-22 Dr. Joyce Hardy Three Pine Ridge Drainages—Same or Different?
2008-02-05 Loree MacNeill Why the Arts?
2008-02-19 Group Discussion (Discussion of Loren Eiseley’s “Star Thrower”)
2008-03-11 Dr. Joel Hyer (Lewis and Clark and the Indian Country)
2008-03-18 Mike Her Many Horses (Lewis and Clark and the Indian Country)
2008-03-25 Dr. Gary Moulton (Lewis and Clark and the Indian Country)
2008-04-01 Dr. Jim Hansen (Lewis and Clark and the Indian Country)
2008-04-06 Kira Gale (Lewis and Clark and the Indian Country)
2008-04-08 Dr. Catherine Lockwood (Lewis and Clark and the Indian Country)
2008-04-15 Gerard Baker (Lewis and Clark and the Indian Country)
2008-09-16 Twyla Hansen On the Plains: A Poet’s Perspective
2008-09-30 Daniel Schweitzer An Approach to Surrealist Epistemology
2008-10-14 Dr. Laura Gaudet Psychosocial Consequences of Brain Injury
2008-10-28 Tom Buecker Army Posts of Nebraska
2008-11-11 Larry Teahon Crow Butte Resource in Situ: Recovery Mining Operations
2009-01-27 George Ledbetter Babaji: Life with the Ascetics of India
2009-02-10 Brad Smith Academics and Athletics Go Hand in Hand
2009-02-24 Jamie Wada Hey, Is This a Real Ticket? Student Perceptions of Campus Police
2009-03-17 Jennifer Balmat Between a Rock and a Hard Spot: A Geologist’s Journey Through the Hazards in Northwest Nebraska
2009-03-31 Lee Miller Chatting with Mikhail Bakhtin about Rhetoric’s History
2009-04-07 Stew Magnuson The American Indian Movement and its Legacy in the Nebraska Border Towns
2009-09-22 Dr. Georgia Younglove Character = Six Little Words
2009-11-10 Jovan Mays Slam Poetry: America’s True Pastime?
2010-02-16 Dr. Joyce Hardy (Charles Darwin)
2010-03-02 Russ Harford Criminal Justice from Different Perspectives
2010-03-16 Logan Veath (Military in Iraq and Afghanistan)
2010-03-30 Dr. Jim Margetts Echoes of Venice
2010-04-13 Pat Colgate A View of the Future of American Higher Education as Perceived by Chadron State College in 1985: How Close Did We Come?
2010-09-14 Dr. Gary White Cultural Experiences Building International Programs
2010-09-28 Dustin Luper The Three P’s: Purpose, Passion and People
2010-10-12 Mike Kennedy Educating Fatima
2010-10-26 Dr. Teresa Zimmerman History of Bighorn Sheep in the Northern Great Plains
2010-11-16 Don Podobnik Close Encounters of the Third Kind—Adventures in New Guinea

This list may be incomplete.

Date Presenter Presentation
2011-10-25 Dr. Matt Evertson Strenuous Lives: Stephen Crane, Theodore Roosevelt, and the American 1890s
2012-02-28 Dr. Sandy Schaefer Arts, Advocacy and Careers
2012-03-13 Dr. Katy Woods Animals, Mental Health and Wellbeing
2012-03-27 Dr. William Roweton The Future of American Education: Some See It, Some Don’t
2012-04-10 Bruce Hoem Vietnam—Stories of a Time Near and Far
2012-09-11 (Multiple Presenters) A Tribute to Dr. Dorset Graves and Milton Wolf
2012-09-18 Dr. Sandy Schaefer Clap Yo Hands: The Tanning of America
2012-09-25 Dr. Mary Jo Carnot How Learning Works: Seven Research Based Principles of Learning
2012-10-02 Dr. Norma Nealeigh The Food Experiment: Us
2013-02-12 Dr. Barb Limbach, Dr. Wendy Waugh The Power of a Learner-Centered Environment: Objective to Assessment
2013-02-26 Dr. Tom Smith Empire, Manliness and Post-Emancipated Identity: Progressive Pan-Africanism at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
2013-03-12 Dr. George Griffith The Wit of the Irish
2013-03-26 Dr. Jo Forstrom Academe: Open Educational Resources, Intellectual Property and Academic Integrity
2013-09-10 Dr. David Nesheim Bass Fishing and Tribal Dispossession at Bde Ihanke (Lake Andes, S.D.)
2013-10-08 Dr. Matt Bokovoy The Franz Boaz Papers: Documentary Innovation and Cultural Repatriation
2013-10-22 Dr. Brad Wilburn Apology, Forgiveness, and Moral Improvement
2013-11-12 Dr. Bob Knight Consolidating Mexico’s Democracy?
2014-02-18 Rich Kenney Poemhenge: Poetry on the Rocks
2014-03-04 Dr. Kurt Kinbacher Walking the Kumano Kodō: An Exercise in World History
2014-03-18 Dr. Linda Hunt Brown, Dr. Jesse Sealey Developing Rich Multicultural Relationships: Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina
2014-04-01 Dr. Susan Hines Change is God: Thoughts on Life, Work, and Moving to Nebraska
2014-09-23 Dr. Ron Bolze Agriculture: Production Versus Conservation
2014-10-07 Dr. Kurt Kinbacher Life in the Roman Provinces: Place, Space, and Indoor Plumbing in Emona (Ljubljana, Slovenia)
2014-10-21 Tim Slessor Perceptions – Them and Us – U.K. and U.S.
2014-11-04 Charles Carey (Music)
2015-02-17 Steve Rolfsmeier Secrets of the Sandhills – Relict Floras
2015-03-03 Dr. Anthony Perlinski Exploring Scale in Rangeland Management
2015-03-24 Dr. William Roweton True or False: No internationally-acknowledged scientific psychologist was born in Nebraska
2015-03-31 Dr. Pat Beu Preparing Today’s Kids for Tomorrow’s College: Thoughts on Academic and Social Changes
2015-09-22 Dr. Josh Ellis Nutritional Ketosis: Fat is Phat
2015-10-13 Dr. Steve Coughlin Another City: A Creative Writing Reading
2015-10-27 Dr. Shaunda French My Confidant, My Coworker: The Interpersonal Relationship of Work Spouses
2015-11-10 Peggy Hinman Life: It Depends on How You Look at It

This list may be incomplete.

Date Presenter Presentation
2016-02-16 McKay Tebbs The Making of “Strawberry Fields Forever”
2016-03-01 Dr. John Buttiglieri Gifted Education and the Underrepresentation of Minorities
2016-03-22 Dr. Terrie Wood Small Business: Ownership – Pain or Pleasure?
2016-04-05 Dr. Janice Haynes Romance & Marriage Plots: Restoration of Family in Narratives of Single Mothers
2016-09-28 Christopher McCarthy The Military-Monetary Complex?
2016-10-11 Dr. Sidney Shuler The Trumpet: What Johnny and Susie Never Knew…
2016-10-25 Mary Gould-Traphagan Institute of Holocaust Education of Nebraska
2016-11-08 Alex Helmbrecht Behind the Polo Shirt: An Insider’s Look at the World of Sports Information
2017-02-21 Charith Kapukotuwa Cultural Assimilation: Sri Lanka to Chadron State College
2017-03-14 Daniel Binkard Multi-Exposure Photography
2017-03-28 Dr. Tara Wilson Healthy Marriages among Farm Couples: Stories and Strategies of Success
2017-10-10 Dr. Yvonne Moody, Dr. Kim Madsen, Erin Norman, Dr. Josh Ellis Wellness Across the Lifespan
2017-11-14 Dr. Michael Stephens Relics and Remnants
2018-03-13 Dr. Mary Clai Jones Corelli’s Designing Fictions: Fashioning the Woman of Genius
2018-04-10 Mary Donahue On the Trail… with the Oscar-Winning Filmmakers, the Coen Brothers
2018-04-17 Dr. Tom Smith, Dr. Deane Tucker Cuba: Change and Continuity
2018-11-06 Dr. Nathaniel Doherty Equanimity Among the Ruins: The Doubtful Value of Humanity in Colson Whitehead’s “Zone One”
2018-11-13 Dr. Mathew Brust Current Conservation Status of Rare Butterflies and Grasshoppers in the Nebraska Panhandle
2018-11-27 Markus Jones The Shaping of Story
2019-03-19 Todd Jamison Student Perceptions of Connectedness in Online Graduate Business Programs
2019-04-23 Aaron Field Prairie Dogs and Grazing Ecology
2019-10-22 Dr. Ann Buchmann Rhinos, Elephants, and Vultures (And a Few Lions)

This list may be incomplete.

Date Presenter Presentation
2021-10-12 Dr. Brittany Helmbrecht Stress: Predictors of Stress in First-Generation College Students
2021-10-26 Tena Cook, Dr. Kim Madsen, Dr. Dave Nesheim A Stitch in Time: 1938 Air Mail Quilt
2021-11-09 Mary Traphagan The Holocaust Past and Present
2022-03-15 Dr. Tawny Tibbits Ray Guns and the Ancient Maya: Geoarchaeology in Belize
2022-03-29 Joanne Hayes How I Got Here
2022-04-12 Dr. Margaret Crouse I Walked Where Jesus Walked
2022-10-18 Daniel Binkard 10 Years of CSC Live: A Broadcasting Overview
2022-11-01 Dr. Rachelle Rider Feet: How Foot Posture Affects Your Body
2022-11-15 Dr. Kurt Kinbacher, Dr. Mary Clai Jones, Markus Jones, Jace Demeranville Biking USA: Speed Goats Study Away
2023-03-14 Katelyn Lambert Women in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: From Iron Man to Black Widow
2023-03-28 Dr. Elizabeth Kraatz Child Behavior as Communication: How to Use Psychology to Parent through Tantrums and Trauma
2023-04-12 DeMoine Adams All-American: From Social Capital to Cultural Capital
2023-09-19 Kat Shiffler Trail Town USA
2023-10-03 Dr. Haesong Kwon Poems that Can Drive a Fully Grown Human to Sob Uncontrollably
2023-10-24 Danielle Covolo, Duane Two Bulls, Virgil X Sacred Knowledge | News Coverage
2024-03-19 Susan Rolfsmeier From Badlands to Lake Baikal: Unraveling a Botanical Mystery | News Coverage
2024-04-02 Emmanuella Tchona A Path to Graduate School: Research Opportunities Offered at Chadron State College | News Coverage
2024-10-03 Dr. Jo Anne Owens-Nauslar Title IX–50 Years: So What? Now What?
2024-10-03 Dr. Jo Anne Owens-Nauslar Fit to Lead… Soar Eagles Style
2025-01-23 Carla Dowdy, Lyndsi Slusarski Title IX Trailblazers
2025-02-13 Jamie Weingart On the Shoulders of Giants: Celebrating 50 Years of Courage and Leadership in Women’s Sports
2025-10-21 Kevin Coy Rooted in Resilience | News Coverage
2025-10-28 Dave Collins Game Day on Air: A Broadcaster’s Playbook
2025-11-18 Dr. Clint Evrard, Sutton Pohlman Type II Diabetes and its Effect on Insulin Receptors

This list may be incomplete.

Rooted in Resilience

Title IX Trailblazers

Fit to Lead

Title IX – 50 Years

A Path to Graduate School

Badlands to Lake Baikal: Unraveling a Botanical Mystery