KU to celebrate 150th Kansas anniversary

KU is among local, university and state groups organizing public activities for the 2004 celebration of the Kansas territorial sesquicentennial.

KU programs will include book discussion groups in four cities—Fort Scott, Junction City, Colby and Lawrence—as well as an online book discussion group and a one-hour credit course.

The sesquicentennial will celebrate the May 1854 signing of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, designating the area as a territory of the United States and leading the way to statehood in 1861.

Initial sessions of the four-part book discussion series will begin at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 8, at the Lawrence Public Library, 707 Vermont St., and will be audiotaped for the Web.

KU Continuing Education is developing “The Kansas Territorial Experience,” a distance-learning credit course that will accompany the book series. Kreissler will instruct the Web course, which begins in January 2004.

Imagination & Place conference scheduled

The Kansas Conference on Imagination & Place: The Power of Place, a collaboration of the Lawrence Arts Center, Kansas Land Trust and Cottonwood literary review, will be Oct. 17 through 19 at the Lawrence Arts Center, 940 New Hampshire St.

Bioregionalist and nationally acclaimed author Stephanie Mills will give one of four main presentations along with Wes Jackson, president of the Land Institute, of Salina; Marci Penner, executive director of the Kansas Sampler Foundation, of Inman; and Peter Pran, international corporate architect, native Norwegian and KU distinguished visiting professor of architecture and urban design, of Lawrence.

A seven-person panel will discuss “The Power of Place” from perspectives including territory, wilderness, property, homeland, space and country.

Visit www.imaginationandplace.org for more information.