No doubt about it: what we wear sends wordless messages—and often, that’s the point. Our clothes show our seriousness, our sassiness, even our political leanings. Yet aside from its momentary message, its fashion statement, or its utility, what do we know of our garment’s origin? Like our food, it isn’t born in the store where we buy it. Blue jeans, for example, have a life cycle as predictable as tadpoles: starting when the fiber is created, ending when the garment is recycled or trashed. Professor Pence has researched this most ubiquitous of garments and will take us with her, tracking a pair of jeans. She’ll reveal how cotton cultivation impacts the environment (hint: not positively); the water resources needed for dye-baths (hint: indigo doesn’t even start out blue); the challenges of recycling. Finally, we’ll learn how washing our clothes further affects the environment.
Laura Pence (BS Lebanon Valley College, PhD Michigan State University, Postdoctoral NIH Fellow at MIT) is a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Hartford with expertise in environmental chemistry, inorganic chemistry, and chemical education. For her work on environmental and sustainability issues, Pence was named a Fellow of the American Chemical Society in 2011 and spent 2012–13 as a Congressional Science Policy Fellow in the office of Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO), where she especially focused on energy, water and forestry. She also holds a joint appointment as a Research Scientist in the National Security Directorate of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Twice ranked among the top 25 professors nationally on RateMyProfessor.com in both 2014 and 2017, Pence won the University of Hartford’s Roy E. Larsen Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2006 and the Oscar and Shoshona Trachtenberg Award for outstanding service in 2023.
Tuesday, Oct. 15 | 12:30 p.m.–2 p.m. | KF Room/Harrison Libraries | OR Thursday, Nov. 7 | 2–3:30 p.m. | McLean | $20
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Faculty and staff are eligible to take one Presidents' College lecture for free every semester, or to receive a one-session discount ($20) for a longer course. Contact Laurie Fasciano at fasciano@hartford.edu or 860.768.4495.