WVC Speaks
Wenatchee Valley College's Lecture Series
WVC Speaks is Wenatchee Valley College’s monthly lecture series that celebrates our faculty and staff’s expertise on a range of topics relevant to life in North Central Washington. Our speakers are inspirational members of our faculty, staff, and community. WVC invites our community to come together to learn, engage with new perspectives, and connect.
2025-2026 Lectures
What Our Emissions Tell Us
Geography Professor Joan Qazi and Sustainable NCW's Executive Director Marlene Farrell addressed where the greenhouse gas emissions in Wenatchee and Chelan County are coming from and what we can do about it. Our Valley Our Future and Sustainable NCW conducted the first ever greenhouse gas inventory for the City of Wenatchee and Chelan County to measure local and imported emissions. In this talk, Qazi and Farrell explained the findings and let participants know about community projects and WVC’s efforts that could help address them.
Fish Wars: Tribal Rights and Resiliency in the Pacific Northwest
WVC Omak Professor Kestrel Smith addressed how in the 1960s and '70s, tribes throughout the Pacific Northwest launched protests and acts of civil disobedience to pressure the government to recognize their fishing rights. Now known as the “Fish Wars,” the lessons from these events remain relevant today. Encompassing tribal sovereignty, treaties, statehood, and the fish themselves, the Fish Wars are a powerful reminder of our interconnectedness. Understanding these events is a first, and essential, step in achieving social, cultural, and political justice.
Carrying Home: Immigration and Mexican Belonging in the Wenatchee Valley
El Corazón Director María Morales-Sánchez used storytelling to shed light on the complex and empowering stories of immigration from Mexico to the Wenatchee Valley. As an immigrant, the daughter of immigrants, and the great-granddaughter of “guest workers,” Morales-Sánchez reflects on what it means to inherit, carry, and share immigrant stories that center human dignity and challenge dehumanizing narratives—particularly those about immigrants from Mexico.
Modern Craftsmen: Women, Ceramics, and Community in the Pacific Northwest
In "Modern Craftsmen," Ceramics Professor Sarah Sprouse addressed a vital and often overlooked chapter of modern art history. Long marginalized within the canon of modernism, ceramics offered women a rare and powerful site of artistic freedom at a time when they were largely excluded from painting and sculpture. In the postwar era, women ceramicists reframed artistic practice as a form of knowledge production—shifting the conversation about art from object to process, from product to practice.