Central Methodist University’s Fleer Lecture Series is making a comeback this spring, with the 2021 talk scheduled for April 15.

After last year’s lecture was cancelled due to the pandemic, the event next month will feature Rev. Dr. Mark Y.A. Davies as the speaker. The topic of the lecture is “Where Do We Go From Here: Climate Chaos or Ecological Community?” The event will take place at 7 p.m. over Zoom and be open to the public, though registration will be required.

Davies is the Wimberly Professor of Social and Ecological Ethics, Director of the World House Institute for Social and Ecological Responsibility, and Executive Director of the Leadership, Education, and Development Hub for the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry at Oklahoma City University, where he has worked in both teaching and administration for 25 years. He is an ordained elder in the Oklahoma Conference of the United Methodist Church, where he served as Chair of the Board of Church and Society from 2015 to 2018.

Davies is one of the inaugural members of the New Room Books Editorial Board. New Room Books is a reviewed academic monograph series that offers scholars from the Methodist tradition and their students a way to share their work. Since 2015, he has served on the United Methodist University Senate, which is “an elected body of professionals in higher education created by the General Conference to determine which schools, colleges, universities, and theological schools meet the criteria for listing as institutions affiliated with The United Methodist Church.”

Davies engages in advocacy and activism in the areas of peace, social justice, and ecological sustainability. Locally this is expressed through his work with the Human Community Network, which works to create non-violent systemic change for a just and flourishing human and ecological community through collaboration, education, innovation, and action. See www.humancommunitynetwork.org.

He and his wife Kristin live in Edmond, OK in the United States, and they have two teenage daughters.

The Fleer Lecture series on values-based education is generously funded by Dr. Gilbert Fleer ‘55 and his wife, Ruth ‘58. Fleer was an assistant professor of religion at CMU from 1959-1965. He went on to serve as a United Methodist counselor for many years counseling young adults. The Fleers’ strong support of leadership training led them to fund the Gil and Ruth Fleer Fund for Excellence in Values-Based Education at CMU.