| Date: | September 4, 2025 at 10 am (Meeting # 704 since 02/13/1986) |
| Topic: | Turning Points in History: When Disease Hits People |
| Speaker: | Salvatore Mangione, MD Associate Professor of Medicine, Jefferson Medical College , Associate Program Director for the Internal Medicine Residency Program, Director History of Medicine Program |
| THIS WILL BE A HYBRID MEETING (in-person at TJC & via Zoom) | |
| To join this meeting on Zoom, please click HERE | |
In a 1896 address at the 47th annual meeting of the American Medical Association, William Osler famously quipped that, "humanity has but three great enemies: fever, famine and war.
Of these, by far the greatest, by far the most terrible, is fever".
He was right.
In fact, fever not only takes lives but can also change history.
Not only we are cramming people in cities like sardines in cans (or, for that matter, like germs on a Petri dish), but we are also heating the planet
(which facilitates the spread of vectors), and moreover we can now ship bugs to the far corners of the world thanks to modern international travel.
Hence, I shall review four epidemics that brought to their knees four mighty empires:
- The Plague of Athens, that killed Pericles and ended the golden age of Athenian Democracy;
- The Plague of Galen, that killed Marcus Aurelius and ended the golden age of Imperial Rome;
- The Plague of Justinian, that killed half of the population of Constantinople and left no soldiers to man the borders against the rising armies of Islam (and the rest, as they say, is history); and lastly
- The humble mosquitoes and lice that ended Napoleon's dream of a transatlantic French empire.
| Date: | September 18, 2025 at 10 am (Meeting # 705 since 02/13/1986) |
| Topic: | Demographic Snapshots of New Jersey in a Changing Century |
| Speaker: | Jorge Schement, Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Communication Policy at Rutgers University |
| THIS WILL BE A HYBRID MEETING (in-person at TJC & via Zoom) | |
| To join this meeting on Zoom, please click HERE | |
This presentation will address demographic changes in New Jersey through the lens of population diversity and higher education.
- Overview of the nation's population trends: population growth; ethnicity; immigration; age cohorts.
- New Jersey's changing population: age, ethnicity, women and minority entrepreneurship, segregation and communities; statewide inclusion and multiculturalism.
- Evolving higher education in New Jersey: demand for university education; diversity of student populations; foreign student trends; faculty diversity profiles.
- New Jersey's coming tension over DEI: diversity in New Jersey's communities, in higher education.
Jorge Reina Schement is Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Communication Policy in the Dept.
of Journalism and Media Studies (JMS), School of Communication and Information (SC&I) with affiliations in American Studies and Latino Studies at Rutgers University.
He previously served as the first Vice President, and Vice Chancellor for Diversity and Inclusion for RU-New Brunswick and for Rutgers Biological and Health Sciences.
He also served as Dean of SC&I, and chaired the Executive Planning Committee for Rutgers' 250th Anniversary celebration.
He was a Distinguished Professor, and cofounder of the Institute for Information Policy at Penn State University.
Schement holds a PhD from Stanford University, an MS from the University of Illinois, and a BBA from SMU.
He is author of over 250 books, papers, and articles.
He served on President George W. Bush's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, the Technology Advisory Committee for Governor Jerry Brown of California, and authored the telecommunications policy agenda for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
He is a founding member of the FCC Federal Advisory Committee on Diversity in the Digital Age.
He served as an advisor to the FCC Transition Team for President Barack Obama, and for President Joe Biden.
He is currently working on a memoir project and posts draft essays to his Facebook page.
| Date: | October 9, 2025 at 10 am (Meeting # 706 since 02/13/1986) |
| Topic: | Public Health in Crisis |
| Speaker: | Peter Marks, American hematologist and oncologist; he served as the Director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research within the Food and Drug Administration |
| THIS WILL BE A ZOOM-ONLY MEETING | |
| To join this meeting on Zoom, please click HERE | |
Public health is briefly defined as the science and the art of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting physical health.
Its foundations developed over hundreds of years, but it came to flourish as a discipline in the 20th century.
During that time, the implementation of sanitary measures, vaccination programs, and policies for harm reduction led to notable reductions in morbidity and mortality, albeit with disparities between high-, middle-, and low-income countries.
Unfortunately, prior progress is now at risk in the 21st century.
To reverse the situation, those dedicated to public health will need to act, including supporting efforts to promote science education; reiterating the benefits of public health measures such as vaccines; working toward renewal of the social contract; and perhaps most urgently, redoubling efforts to convey complex public health concepts clearly, powerfully, and prolifically.
Peter Marks was appointed to his position in 2016 after previously serving as deputy director.
Among other duties, Marks oversaw the FDA vaccine program.
| Date: | October 23, 2025 at 10 am (Meeting # 707 since 02/13/1986) |
| Topic: | Governors: Chief Scientists in Our Laboratories of Democracy |
| Speaker: | Kristoffer (Kris) Shields, Director of the Eagleton Center on the American Governor (ECAG) and the Interim Director of the Eagleton Science and Politics Program at the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University |
| THIS WILL BE A HYBRID MEETING (in-person at TJC & via Zoom) | |
| To join this meeting on Zoom, please click HERE | |
It is often said that New Jersey has "the most powerful governor's seat in the United States." But is that true? What does that even mean? And if states are, as they are sometimes described, the "laboratories of our democracy," does that make governors the chief scientists?
Indeed, there are 50 state governors in the United States and the job differs for each one.
Some state constitutions place a significant amount of power in the chief executive, giving the governor broad latitude in areas such as political appointments, vetoes, redistricting, and executive orders.
Other states place important limits on some or all of these powers, creating a less powerful chief executive (and perhaps enhancing the standing of the state legislature).
While these differences can be minor, they are of added importance in a political environment in which the nation's chief executive—the president—is increasingly powerful.
While there are many ways to define which state has the "most" powerful governor, no matter how you categorize it New Jersey is always near the top.
New Jersey's governor has a broad range of powers, as the governor is the only statewide elected state official in New Jersey.
And of course, all of this makes our current gubernatorial race all the more important.
In this talk, we will take a closer look at the office of the governor broadly and the sometimes-underestimated role the governor plays in both state and national politics.
We will analyze how different governors can most effectively "run their labs" in an era in which state politics and state policy are growing in importance.
And we will look at political and electoral trends in both the country and the state, placing our discussion in the context of the important race taking place in our backyard.
Kristoffer (Kris) Shields is Director of the Eagleton Center on the American Governor (ECAG) and the Interim Director of the Eagleton Science and Politics Program at the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University.
As the Director of ECAG, Shields leads the construction and maintenance of the Center's archives on former New Jersey governors, which includes videos of interviews and roundtable discussions, important documents, photographs, and original research.
The Center also conducts research and analysis of the office of the governor in a national context.
Shields writes for the Center's website and is co-author of From Candidate to Governor-Elect: Recommendations for Gubernatorial Transitions.
He also a frequent contributor to radio, television, and print media on issues related to governors and gubernatorial elections.
Shields is an Assistant Research Professor at Eagleton and teaches first-year seminars on governors and gubernatorial elections as well as a special topics course in the Political Science department titled "The American Governor."
He was also formerly a co-instructor in the department's "Political Campaigning" course.
Shields also helps teach and train the institute's graduate fellows and post-doctorate science fellows.
As Interim Director of the Eagleton Science and Politics Program, Shields organizes workshops and training sessions for scientists interested in policy and leads the Eagleton Science Fellowship Program, which places post-doctoral scientists in New Jersey government offices.
Shields is a former lawyer and an historian by training, with a B.A. in American Studies from Yale University, a J.D. from the New York University School of Law, and a Ph.D. in History from Rutgers University.
He has focused on 20th century U.S. legal and cultural history and is particularly interested in the cultural importance of famous trials.
He is the author of "The Opposition: Labor, Liquor, and Democrats" in A Companion to Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover and is a contributor to the online American history textbook The American Yawp: A Massively Collaborative Open U.S. History Textbook.
Shields previously practiced law in New York City as an associate in the real estate and litigation departments at Dechert LLP and as a media law clerk at NBC Universal.
In 2012-2013, Shields was an Eagleton Graduate Fellow, placed at the State Historic Preservation Office in Trenton.
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| Date: | November 6, 2025 at 10 am (Meeting # 708 since 02/13/1986) |
| Topic: | Beauty, Inspiration, and Aspiration |
| Speaker: | Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence; Professor of Politics; Director, James Madison Program |
| THIS WILL BE A HYBRID MEETING (in-person at TJC & via Zoom) | |
| To join this meeting on Zoom, please click HERE | |
Does beauty matter?
Should we value it?
If so, why?
Is beauty merely "in the eye of the beholder"?
Or are there at least some objective standards of beauty—and ugliness.
Is beauty something purely private and therefore irrelevant to public life and public affairs?
Or do communities have a legitimate stake in beauty?
Professor George will explore these and related questions.
He argues that beauty matters—to the broader community as well as to individuals—because beauty can inspire us and cause us to aspire to do better and be better.
People in communities like Princeton benefit in a variety of ways—some quite subtle yet still very important—from the beauty of the circumstances in which we live,
bring up our children, and conduct our daily lives.
We should be grateful for that, and diligent about protecting the beauty of our community for future generations.
| Date: | November 20, 2025 at 10 am (Meeting # 709 since 02/13/1986) |
| Topic: | TBA |
| Speaker: | TBA |
| THIS WILL BE A HYBRID MEETING (in-person at TJC & via Zoom) | |
| To join this meeting on Zoom, please click HERE | |
| Date: | December 4, 2025 at 10 am (Meeting # 710 since 02/13/1986) |
| Topic: | The Everywhere Millionaire: Who is Really Rich in America and How They Got There |
| Speaker: | Owen Zidar, Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University |
| THIS WILL BE A HYBRID MEETING (in-person at TJC & via Zoom) | |
| To join this meeting on Zoom, please click HERE | |
Professor Zidar together with Professor Eric Zwick or University of Chicago are writing a book called The Everywhere Millionaire: Who is Really Rich in America and How They Got There.
The book tells the story of how millions of Americans from nearly every town in America became wealthy private business owners, and how they are changing our communities and the nation.
Here is the table of contents:
PART I: Who is Really Rich in America?
1. The Age of Millionaires
2. The Rise of Pass-throughs
3. Millions of Main Street Millionaires
4. Many Paths to Prosperity
5. The Typical Top Earner
PART II: Three Ways to Get Rich: Found, Inherit, Acquire
6. Where Do Entrepreneurs Come From?
7. What Do Entrepreneurs Need?
8. The Shortcut: Inheritance
9. Private Equity on Main Street
PART III: The Power and Influence of Private Business Owners
10. Growing and Slicing the Pie
11. Tax Breaks for Main Street Millionaires
12. Market Power in a Million Markets
13. Seats of Power
14. Policy
Owen Zidar is a Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University.
He is also the director of the Industrial Relations Section at Princeton, a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a former co-editor of the Journal of Public Economics.
Before joining Princeton, Zidar worked as an assistant professor of economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, a staff economist at the Council of Economic Advisers, and as an analyst at Bain Capital Ventures.
Zidar holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley and B.A. from Dartmouth College.
He is a 2018 recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER Award and a 2020 recipient of the Sloan Research Fellowship.
He lives in Princeton, NJ, with his wife and two sons.
| Date: | December 18, 2025 at 10 am (Meeting # 711 since 02/13/1986) |
| Topic: | Sustainable Energy Efforts in New Jersey |
| Speaker: | Randall Solomon, Director of The Sustainability Institute at The College of New Jersey |
| THIS WILL BE A HYBRID MEETING (in-person at TJC & via Zoom) | |
| To join this meeting on Zoom, please click HERE | |
He has over 25 years of experience working in government, academia, and the non-profit sector.
He is one of the principals that founded and directs the Sustainable Jersey Certification program.
Prior to his current position he was the founder and Executive Director of the New Jersey Sustainable State Institute at Rutgers where he worked to expand the capacity of public decision making to address sustainability.
Mr. Solomon's experience includes positions as a policy advisor on sustainable development for the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities integrating land use and energy policy, director of the States Campaign for the Resource Renewal Institute in San Francisco, and policy director for the non-profit New Jersey Future.
Other jobs include a stint as a national Park Ranger and serving in the inaugural class of AmeriCorps volunteers.
He has participated on advisory boards for federal and state government, civic organizations, and has advised major corporations.
He writes and speaks frequently on sustainable development, energy, land use policy, using indicators in public decision making, and governance issues.
Mr. Solomon holds a B.S. in Biology from Stockton University and a M.S. in Public Policy from Rutgers University.
| Date: | January 8, 2026 at 10 am (Meeting # 712 since 02/13/1986) |
| Topic: | The Spinach King: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty? |
| Speaker: | John Seabrook, staff writer at The New Yorker |
| THIS WILL BE A ZOOM-ONLY MEETING | |
| To join this meeting on Zoom, please click HERE | |
My talk to about the mixed legacy of my grandfather, C.F. Seabrook who created an agricultural empire of frozen vegetables on South Jersey called Seabrook Farms.
Revered by many of his workers as a humanitarian business leader who inspired and in some cases saved them, he turned on his own family, destroyed his relationships with his sons, and in the process wrecked the business.
My father only revealed the truth about his father after he died when he left me proof of the kind of man my grandfather was.
In writing The Spinach King, I had to reconcile the official mythologized portrait of C.F. Seabrook with the way he treated his family, and my father's posthumous desire for revenge.
John Seabrook has been a staff writer at The New Yorker for more than three decades.
He is the author of The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory, Flash of Genius: And Other True Stories of Invention, Nobrow: The Culture of Marketing, the Marketing of Culture and other books.
The film Flash of Genius was based on one of his stories.
He and his family live in Brooklyn.
| Date: | January 15, 2026, 10:00–12:00 |
| What: | 55PLUS VOLUNTEERS MEETING. ALL ARE WELCOME! |
| Topic: | Discussion about running 55Plus and future plans |
| To join this meeting on Zoom, please click HERE | |
| Date: | January 22, 2026 at 10 am (Meeting # 713 since 02/13/1986) |
| Topic: | Lessons we can learn today from the activists and organizers of the Women’s Liberation Movement |
| Speaker: | Clara Bingham, Journalist and author |
| THIS WILL BE A ZOOM-ONLY MEETING | |
| To join this meeting on Zoom, please click HERE | |
Bingham's second book, Class Action: The Landmark Case that Changed Sexual Harassment Law (with Laura Leedy Gansler, Doubleday 2002), was adapted into the 2005 feature film North Country (Warner Bros.) staring Charlize Theron and Francis McDormand.
She is also the author of Women on the Hill: Challenging the Culture of Congress (Times Books 1997).
A graduate of Harvard College (1985), Bingham got her start in journalism as a correspondent in the Washington, DC bureau of Newsweek magazine.
Clara Bingham is a journalist and author whose work has focused on social justice and women's issues.
Her latest book, The Movement: How Women's Liberation Transformed America 1963-1973, was published by Simon & Schuster in 2024.
A history of the early years of second wave feminism, The Movement is written in a similar oral history narrative style to her previous book, Witness to the Revolution: Radicals, Resisters, Vets, Hippies, and the Year America Lost its Mind and Found its Soul (Random House 2016)