Tuesday, March 15 at 7:00pm – The Great Decisions topic on Tuesday, March 15 will be “The Quad Alliance” It will be addressed by Richard J. Stoll, Ph.D., the Albert Thomas Professor of Political Science at Rice University. He is also a Rice faculty scholar at the Baker Institute. He is currently director of undergraduate studies in the Political Science Department and the director of the Managerial Studies program. In addition, he is a senior fellow and a member of the advisory council of the Institute for Sustainable Peace in Houston, Texas. He previously served as associate dean of social sciences at Rice and as associate director for academic programs at the Baker Institute.

Tuesday, March 1 at 7:00pm – The Great Decisions topic on Tuesday, March 1 will be “Russia and the U. S.” It will be addressed by Dr. Zachary Zwald, Instructional Assistant Professor at the University of Houston. Before joining UH, Zwald was an Assistant Professor jointly appointed in the US Air War College and the USAF Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies. He has served as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies at Ohio State University and, during the 2013-2014 academic year, as the Stanton Foundation Nuclear Security Junior Faculty Fellow at MIT. Zwald has presented his research to agencies throughout the US government.

Tuesday, February 22nd at 7:00pm in the church Sanctuary will feature Dr. Kenneth Medlock. The challenges of addressing global climate change in the 21st century remain essentially the same as in the 20th: how should or can we reduce human-made greenhouse gas emissions worldwide to prevent damaging the planet upon which we live and depend? Kenneth B. Medlock III, Ph.D., is the James A. Baker, III, and Susan G. Baker Fellow in Energy and Resource Economics at the Baker Institute and the senior director of the Center for Energy Studies. He is also the director of the Masters of Energy Economics program, and holds adjunct professor appointments in the Department of Economics and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Rice University.

Tuesday, February 15th in the BAUUC Sanctuary at 7:00pm. The space domain has changed rapidly during the first two decades of the 21st century with the rise of new national powers and the entry of commercial companies shaking up what had long been a static environment. How will the United States deal with these changes policy-wise? Dr. David Alexander is a professor in the department of physics and astronomy at Rice University, where his primary area of research is solar astrophysics. As director, Alexander is responsible for the mission and direction required to develop and achieve the goals and objectives of the Rice Space Institute.

Tuesday, February 8 in the BAUUC Sanctuary, Great Decisions will feature Dr. Stephen Klineberg speaking on Changing Demographics. Dr. Klineberg is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Rice University’s Kinder Institute of Urban Research.

Tuesday February 1st at 7:00pm Great Decisions kicks off with a keynote speaker, Mr. Richard Sindelar, Director of the Center for International Studies at Houston’s University of St. Thomas. Mr. Sindelar is a retired U. S. Foreign Service Officer (1973-1995) with background in the Middle East, Canada and Mexico, international & citizenship issues, and a temporary duty tour in Cuba. He is also a TV/Radio Analyst with appearances on Channel 26 Fox News, Channels 11 & 13, and KTRH Radio. He will present an overview of the nine foreign policy topics that will be studied during the nine-week period.