College of Liberal Arts & Sciences

Cheryl Brown, chair and associate professor, Department of Political Science and Public Administration, will speak as part of the Great Decisions lecture series at 6:30 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 5, at UNC Charlotte Center City.

Valentine’s Day is fast-approaching, which means it is time for the Botanical Gardens annual orchid sale. Orchids have a long history of being associated with love, which makes them a perfect gift.This year’s Botanical Gardens Orchid Sale, scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 8, through Friday, Feb. 14, is an opportunity to purchase orchids priced starting at $10. An assortment of houseplants and succulents will be on sale, too.

In a Feb. 4 Personally Speaking event, English professor Jennifer Munroe will talk about how to better understand the world of William Shakespeare’s plays and the relationships depicted among the men, women, animals and plants of the playwright’s imaginings.

Charles Dupras, a postdoctoral fellow at the Center of Genomics and Policy at McGill University, will present “Protecting Privacy in the Multi-omic Era: A Case Study of Ethical and Legal Challenges Emerging with Epigenetics” at 11:30 a.m., Tuesday, Jan. 28, in the Barnhardt Student Activity Center, Salon A.

 A book by UNC Charlotte History professor Christine Haynes has been chosen the best in modern French history (post 1815) over the previous two years, receiving the inaugural Weber Book Prize from the UCLA Department of History.

UNC Charlotte has opened the Carolinas’ first School of Data Science. This interdisciplinary school allows UNC Charlotte to expand on its programs in the field and open up the growing and diverse field of data science to students with varied career interests.

UNC Charlotte’s Botanical Gardens is starting 2020 with a number of classes and workshops. They include “Grow Your Own Microgreens at Home” on Saturday, Jan. 11; “Botanical Macrophotography with Your Smartphone” on Sunday, Jan. 19; and the two-day offering, “Basic Botany” on Saturday and Sunday, Jan. 25-26.

A book by UNC Charlotte Africana Studies associate professor Oscar de la Torre has received the inaugural Outstanding First Book Award from the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora.

Stephanie Stenglein ’07 didn’t know what a 501c3 was when she started the Master of Public Administration program at UNC Charlotte. But she knew she enjoyed nonprofit work, and that it drew on her skills as a communicator and relationship builder.

Two infants unearthed in ancient burial mounds in Salango, Ecuador, were buried wearing helmets crafted from the skulls of other children, in what researchers believe was a unique practice perhaps intended to protect the infants’ souls during their journey to the afterlife.“This has literally not been seen before, to our knowledge. We think this is a totally novel burial practice,” said bioarchaeologist Sara Juengst, an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at UNC Charlotte.