Join us for the Lutz Lectures – Learn while the kids play!

Register for one lecture, a series of three lectures on a topic, or a “series sampler” and pick one lecture from each series!

All Lutz Lectures will take place at the Lutz Children’s Museum at 7:30pm and last an hour. The gallery area will be open for free play for attendees children. Please call in advance if you plan to bring your child. Masks are required for ages two and up.

Education Series

Creativity: Basics, Benefits, and Tips – March 12, 2022
James C. Kaufman, Neag School of Education, University of Connecticut

Emotional Intelligence: What it is & Why it Matters for Parents & Kids – May 14, 2022
Zorana Ivcevic Pringle, Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, Yale University

Developing Interests in Children – July 16, 2022
Joe Renzulli and Sally Reis, Neag School of Education, University of Connecticut

Animals Series

Marine Mammals and Sea Turtles of Long Island Sound – August 6, 2022
Education Department, Mystic Aquarium

How do Dogs Chose their Human Friends? – April 2, 2022
Zachary Taylor, Yale University

Black Bears in Connecticut – June 4, 2022
Paul Colburn, Master Wildlife Conservationist, Connecticut DEEP

History Series

Art and Ingenuity in Early America – August 27, 2022
Peter Millett, Manchester Historical Society^**

The Podunk: Manchester’s Indigenous Peoples – April 23, 2022
Diane Hoover, Historical Society of Glastonbury

Changes in Manchester Over the Years – June 25, 2022
Bob Kanehl, Manchester Historical Society^**

Tickets

Advance, single lecture $10
At the door, single lecture $12
Full series (3 lectures) $25
Series sampler (chose 1 lecture from each series, 3 lectures total) $28
All 9 lectures $70

^**Special thanks to our friends at the Manchester Historical Society for partnering with us on these lectures and our “People of Manchester” series coming in 2022!

Meet The Speakers

Education Speakers

Dr. Sally Reis is the Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, a Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor, and a Teaching Fellow in Educational Psychology at the University of Connecticut. She currently holds the Letitia Neag Chair in Educational Psychology. She was a public school teacher and administrator for 15 years, prior to her work at UConn. She has authored more than 250 articles, books, book chapters, monographs and technical reports. She has traveled extensively across the country conducting workshops and providing professional development for school districts on enrichment programs and gender equity programs.

Dr. Joseph S. Renzulli is a leader and pioneer in gifted education and applying the pedagogy of gifted education teaching strategies to all students. The American Psychological Association named him among the 25 most influential psychologists in the world. He received the Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Award for Innovation in Education, considered by many to be “the Nobel” for educators, and was a consultant to the White House Task Force on Education of the Gifted and Talented. His work on the Three Ring Conception of Giftedness, the Enrichment Triad Model and curriculum compacting and differentiation were pioneering efforts in the 1970s, and he has contributed hundreds of books, book chapters, articles, and monographs to the professional literature, many of which have been translated to other languages.

Dr. Zorana Ivcevic Pringle is a Senior Research Scientist and Director of the Creativity and Emotions lab at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. Dr. Ivcevic studies how to use the arts to promote emotion and creativity skills, as well as the role of emotion in creativity and well-being.

Dr. James C. Kaufman is a Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Connecticut. He is the author/editor of more than 50 books, including Creativity 101 and the Cambridge Handbook of Creativity (with Robert Sternberg). He has published more than 300 papers, including the study that spawned the “Sylvia Plath Effect,” and three well-known theories of creativity. His current interests focus on creativity and meaning; how creativity can be assessed and the individual differences in people’s creative abilities, and the relationship between creativity and social justice/equity.

Animals Speakers

Mystic Aquarium is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with a mission to inspire people to care for and protect our ocean planet through conservation, education and research. Their educators aim to foster an interest in and understanding of the science and conservation of the aquatic world through formal and informal programs, written interpretive materials and exposure to living marine animals.

Zachary Silver is interested in how nonhuman animals learn from and about human agents. His research explores how dogs and other canid species use observed behavior to socially evaluate humans along several dimensions including morality, competence, and social rank. Zachary is also interested in the effects of formal training on sociocognitive development. Prior to beginning his work at Yale, Zachary graduated from Illinois Wesleyan University with a B.A. in Psychology and Music.

Paul Colburn is a 2015 graduate of the Master Wildlife Conservationist Program (MWCP) and a certified Master Wildlife Conservationist (MWC). The MWCP is a Connecticut Department of Energy & Environmental Protection (DEEP) adult education program that trains volunteers in the fields of wildlife management, natural history and interpretation. Mr. Colburn has provided hundreds of wildlife presentations for a wide variety of public and private organizations in all corners of the state. Mr. Colburn is an avid outdoorsman, a graduate of Wesleyan University and served honorably in the United States Army.

History Speakers

Peter Millett has lived in Manchester for over 30 years with his wife Kristen and 4 grown children. Born in northern Maine and raised in Istanbul, Turkey then Lexington and Concord, he has a deep interest in culture and history. For the past 6 years he has served as the director of the Cheney Homestead Museum, demonstrating fascinating connections and examples of “art, ingenuity & early American life”, and helped to develop the Cheney Homestead Arts program. He has served for 5 years as a Manchester Historical Society director and as Vice President.

Diane Hoover received her Masters Degree in History Education from Southern Connecticut State University. She was a teacher in the Glastonbury Public Schools for forty-one years where she taught in the History/Social Sciences Departments at the middle school level. She was honored as Teacher of the Year in 1990. After retiring in 2015, Diane became the Education Director for the Historical Society of Glastonbury. In that role she continues to teach history to people of all ages, from preschoolers to seniors. Recently she has been involved in the research of “forgotten peoples” in history, such as Native Americans and African Americans of Connecticut.

Robert Kanehl is a native of Manchester. His latest book – Historic Tales of Manchester – is a collection of his Journal Inquirer history columns. Besides this book he has authored several young adult fiction books, all historically based. After 31 years in public education, he has joined the staff at the Connecticut Poison Control Center located at UCONN Health in Farmington. He continues to write for the Journal Inquirer as well as novels.