The Shadow
CLIFTON FORGE — Dr. Sue Rollinson will present “Russian Revelations —Moscow to St. Petersburg” Thursday at 11:30 a.m. at Dabney S.?Lancaster Community College’s Moomaw Center.
Students and community members in the Rockbridge area are invited to join via Zoom in Room 910 at the Rockbridge Regional Center in Buena Vista.
The Rollinsons took a river cruise from Moscow to St. Petersburg in September, experiencing the rich culture in the two capital cities and the enduring folk culture of the small cities, villages and monasteries along the rivers and canals.
From the Tsars to the Soviets to the Oligarchs, Russia is a fascinating country. Spanning 11 time zones and having the largest land area of any nation, Russia remains a sparsely populated country, with most Russians living east of the Ural Mountains.
The country has undergone massive economic, governmental and environmental changes since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.
A second presentation, “The Galapagos Islands,” will be given by Dr. Rollinson on Tuesday, Feb. 12, at 11:30 a.m. in the Moomaw Center. Student and community members may also enjoy this talk via Zoom in Room 910 at the Rockbridge Regional Center in Buena Vista.
Dr. Rollinson and her husband cruised the eastern Galapagos Islands in August 2018. Daily kayaking, snorkeling and hiking adventures provided them the opportunity to explore the remarkable islands and gave up-close views of extraordinary wildlife, like penguins, sea lions, iguanas, giant tortoises and thousands of sea birds.
The Galapagos Islands are a group of volcanic islands about 560 miles off the coast of Ecuador. Now a tightly-controlled nature preserve, the first accurate mapping and biological-geological studies of the islands were made on the second voyage of the HMS Beagle under Captain Robert Fitz-Roy in 1835.
Charles Darwin was the ship’s naturalist and performed studies of the wildlife that eventually led to his theory of evolution by natural selection. Unin-habited and lacking in natural resources, the islands became part of Ecuador in 1832. The islands then became a national park in 1959, and today tourism is the major source of income.
A native of Chicago, Dr. Rollinson has lived in the Alleghany Highlands and has been affiliated with DSLCC since 1980. She has taught chemistry, computer applications and environmental science and was the first director of the Jackson River Governor’s School (2000-2007).
She has been the director/co-director/webmaster for the Field Ecology Summer Regional Gover-nor’s School since 2000.
Dr. Rollinson met her husband, Lon, while they were both grad students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. They have three grown children. After retirement, the Rol-linsons returned to Clifton Forge and have been working on checking off their “bucket list” of domestic and international travel.
Dr. Rollinson’s talks are free and open to the public; lunch is available for purchase from Sonny Side Café in the Moomaw Center.
For more information about the presentation, please contact DSLCC Student Activities at (540) 863-2828.
