By Katie Perkowski

The people of Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill offer valuable ideas for tackling 21st century issues, Ernie Yanarella said.

Yanarella, a UK political science professor, will deliver a lecture Thursday titled, “Shakertown and the World of Tomorrow: Local-Global Perspectives on Twenty-First Century Issues,” as part of the Chellgren Lecture Series.

“I want to demonstrate the need to reinvent Shakertown to convert it into a living regional museum and civic gallery for the Bluegrass and beyond,” Yanarella said in an e-mail to the Kernel.

Yanarella said he also hopes to show the Shaker experience in Central Kentucky can provide the basis for an undergraduate course at UK that could be a part of the new general education program, which is being finalized by faculty in the undergraduate program.

Shakertown, or Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, used to be home to a Shaker community in Harrodsburg, Ky., according to the Shakertown at Pleasant Hill Web site.

Lessons from the Shaker community can help students tackle the issues they face ahead of them, Yanarella said.

“Preparing students for the twenty-first century and the world of tomorrow with a quality undergraduate education is a noble and rewarding enterprise,” Yanarella said in the e-mail.

The main focus of his lecture will be to illustrate the ways people today can find solutions to modern, global problems related to ecological threats by looking at the Shaker community and their practices, Yanarella said in his e-mail.

The lecture is Thursday at 3:30 p.m. on the 18th floor of the Patterson Office Tower.

The Chellgren lecture series aims to give participating professors the opportunity to make known their ideas for improving the undergraduate program at UK, said Philipp Kraemer, Chellgren Center Endowed Chair and professor of psychology

“Each professor devotes time to an explicit project designed to improve undergraduate education through pedagogical reform, curricular innovation, or some other avenue that directly affects undergraduate student learning,” Kraemer said. “The purpose of the lecture series is to promote a public awareness of these projects.”