Distinguished Speakers

The lecture will cover the study of plants used in traditional healing by indigenous cultures. Balick will discuss the methodology of tropical plant exploration, as well as introduce some of the traditional healers that he and his colleagues have worked with in Central America and Micronesia.

Balick is the director of the Institute of Economic Botany of the New York Botanical Gardens. For nearly 30 years he has studied the relationship between plants and people, working with traditional cultures in tropical, subtropical, and desert environments. He has conducted 56 international expeditions to carry out fieldwork in countries all over the globe. His fieldwork also takes him to the fruit and vegetable markets and botánicas of New York City.

In 1981 he co-founded The New York Botanical Garden’s Institute of Economic Botany, which he devoted to furthering knowledge of the relationship between plants and people, and includes the interdisciplinary staff of biological and social scientists.

He has been active in ethnopharmacological investigations (the search for plants with medicinal properties) particularly in Belize where his research aided in the formation of the world’s first ethnobiomedical forest reserve. He co-founded the Ix Chel Tropical Research Foundation, a center in Belize devoted traditional healing and cultural preservation. From 1986-1996 he helped survey Central and South America and the Caribbean for plants with potential applications against cancer and AIDS.

Balick is the author of more than 16 scientific and general interest books and monographs and currently serves as an adjunct professor at Columbia University, New York University, Yale University and City University of New York.

For more information,   please contact Steve Myers at 407-582-2205. Valencia’s East Campus is located at 701 N. Econolockhatchee Trail in Orlando. For more Valencia news, please got to ww.valenciacc.edu.

Recent Speakers

Best-Selling Novelist Lisa See will Speak at Valencia

Los Angeles-based writer Lisa See, author of four novels including "Dragon Bones," "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan," and her latest, "Peony in Love," is coming to Valencia's East Campus on January 24.

Ms. See will give a talk from 2:30 - 3:45 p.m. in the Performing Arts Center, followed by a book sale and signing.

Her novel "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" (2005) is currently number 24 on the New York Times Best Selling Paperback Trade Fiction list.

Brian Turner
Poet
January 28, 2008
Reading: 5:15 p.m. - 6:15 p.m.

Buses will take students from East and West Campus to see Mr. Turner

• East Pick-Up at 3:00 in front of the PAC
• West Pick-Up at 4:00 in front of SSB

Book Signing: 6:15 p.m.
Osceola Campus - Auditorium; Building 2

Brian Turner is a Soldier-poet whose debut book of poems, Here, Bullet, won the 2005 Beatrice Hawley Award and the New York Times "Editor's Choice" selection. 

PTK & Valencia Honors Program proudly present
Chapmyn Spoken Word

Chapmyn Spoken Word is starting the Revolution!

http://www.chapmyn.com/

FACT: Half a million people already dead, and 2.5 million people forced out of their homes and communities.  Africa hasn't seen such atrocities

Valencia Community College
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
East Campus PAC 7:00 pmsince Rwanda. Walk away knowing you can make a difference. http://googledarfur.com/

James H. Chapmyn has taken the beautiful. graceful, sometimes in your face art of the Choreopoem, flavoring the art with real life experiences, a poetic voice from the soul, and a rhythm that will move you to feel........Not change who you are, not tell you what to think, just cause you to look deep within yourself and feel.