The 2015 CSU Channel Islands Fall Library Series is taking two of its lectures to the Channel Islands Harbor.

In addition to a dozen free lectures at libraries throughout the county, CI’s popular series will include two presentations at the CI Boating Center that overlooks the harbor.

One lecture is about humpback whales, and the other about the prehistory of coastal Ventura County.

“The lectures at the Boating Center are specifically connected to nature and the islands and what we’re doing with our research center out on Santa Rosa Island,” said the organizer of the lectures, Associate Vice President for Arts & Sciences, Karen Carey, Ph.D. “Besides fascinating presentations, we want people in the community to explore the boating center and get to know all the activities that are available to them.”

The CI Boating Center is located at 3880 Bluefin Circle, Channel Islands Harbor in Oxnard. Both lectures run from 6 to 7:30 p.m.
 
On Sept. 24, Biology Lecturer Rachel Cartwright, Ph.D., will present “Humpback Whales: Gentle Giants of the North Pacific.” Underwater video, recordings of whale songs and tales of a life spent researching whales will highlight the presentation. Cartwright just returned from her most recent whale research trip to Alaska.

On Oct. 22, Assistant Professor of Anthropology Jennifer Perry, Ph.D. and Associate Professor of Anthropology Colleen Delaney, Ph.D. will collaborate on “The Human Prehistory of the Channel Islands and Coastal California: A 10,000-year Retrospective.”

Did you know the people of the Channel Islands, the Chumash and the Tongva, built plank canoes that were some of the most sophisticated watercraft in the Americas? Or that they manufactured a kind of shell and bead money circulated through California into historic times? Perry and Delaney will take us on a voyage through the still-untamed Channel Islands to find out about ancient Californians and why the islands are so important to us today.

In addition to the lectures at the boating center, this fall’s lineup boasts a dozen more presentations from CI faculty on everything from Irish music to Nazis to leadership skills to the psychological benefits of a relationship with God, to name just a few subjects. 

— Kim Gregory represents CSU Channel Islands.