[285] MTSU Provost Bartel Initiates Spring Honors Lecture Series Jan. 31

Release date: Jan. 27, 2011

News and Media Relations contact: Randy Weiler, 615-898-5616 or jweiler@mtsu.edu
Honors College contacts: Dr. John Vile, 615-898-2152 or jvile@mtsu.edu
or Dr. Scott Carnicom, 615-898-2152 or carnicom@mtsu.edu

MTSU Provost Bartel Initiates Spring Honors Lecture Series Jan. 31

(MURFREESBORO) — University Provost Brad Bartel will kick off the Spring 2011 Honors Lecture Series, “Celebrating Creative Scholarship,” this Monday, Jan. 31.
Bartel’s lecture is titled “The Mother-Goddess Figurine Problem on the European Paleolithic.” It will begin promptly at 3 p.m. in Room 106 of the Paul W. Martin Sr. Honors Building. The one-hour lecture is free and open to the public.
“For more than 125 years, historians, archaeologists and social scientists have interpreted the meaning of figurines labeled as ‘mother-goddesses’ from various prehistoric periods,” Bartel said of the synopsis of the lecture. “Not only have they linked these figurines to functionally-known figurines from historic periods, they have placed them in a continuum to support concepts of ancient social organization for society.”
The first-year provost said the lecture “reviews the problem from a modern archaeological perspective using the most recent data from European archaeological sites. It also demonstrates how interpretations have changed through time based on the theoretical framework of the archaeologists, as well as gender of the individuals making the interpretation.”
Bartel joined the MTSU administration after serving as president of Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colo., from 2004 to 2010. His background is in anthropology. To learn more about him, go online to http://www.mtsu.edu/provost/bartel.shtml.
The 10-week lecture series runs through April 11. For a series list, go online to http://www.mtsu.edu/honors/Spring_Lecture_Series.shtml.

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Media welcomed.

Note: a jpeg photo of Dr. Brad Bartel, university provost, is available. To obtain by e-mail, contact Randy Weiler in MTSU News and Media Relations, by calling 615-898-5616 or e-mail jweiler@mtsu.edu.

Founded in 1911, Middle Tennessee State University is a Tennessee Board of Regents institution located in Murfreesboro and is the state’s largest public undergraduate institution. MTSU now boasts one of the nation’s first master’s degree programs in horse science, and the Council of Graduate Schools in Washington, D.C., acclaims MTSU’s Master of Science in Professional Science degree — the only one in Tennessee — as a model program. MTSU recently unveiled three new doctoral degrees in the sciences.

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