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The University of Scranton\u2019s Schemel Forum World Affairs Luncheon Seminars series brings to campus a roster of distinguished speakers who will discuss baseball history, Egyptian archaeology and international relations.<\/p>\n
The fall series will feature four seminars in total. All luncheon seminars take place from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the University\u2019s campus. A remote viewing option is available for many of the luncheons. The Schemel Forum is sponsored by Munley Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n The series opens Thursday, Oct. 2, with \u201cGlobal Insights from Poland\u2019s Consular General,\u201d presented by Mateusz Sakowicz<\/strong>, Consul General of the Republic of Poland in New York. The luncheon presentation will be held in the McIlhenny Ballroom of the DeNaples Center at the University.<\/p>\n Drawing on his extensive diplomatic experience, Consul General Sakowicz will share insights into Poland\u2019s role in transatlantic relations, the value of cultural diplomacy and the importance of Polish-American partnerships in addressing today\u2019s global challenges.<\/p>\n Sakowicz is a career diplomat and appointed civil service officer with extensive experience in international relations, peace and security and cultural diplomacy. He has represented Poland in key diplomatic posts across Dublin, the United Nations, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, culminating in his appointment as Consul General in 2024.<\/p>\n In 1888, baseball pitcher-turned-entrepreneur A.G. Spalding along with an entourage of ball players, sports writers and other adventurers embarked on a baseball tour around the world. Nearly 110 years later, the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum received the donation of an unsigned diary kept by a member of the expedition. During the luncheon presentation, participants will relive the tour, visit exotic lands, view images of rare ephemera and artifacts from the journey and along the way solve the mystery of just who penned the diary.<\/p>\n It was a serendipitous series of events that led Shieber to his current role at America\u2019s cherished baseball museum. During nearly a dozen years working in Astrophysics at Mount Wilson Observatory in the San Gabriel Mountains, he drove to Dodger Stadium \u201cmore times than I care to admit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile I very much enjoyed my work at the Observatory, my passion had long been researching baseball history,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n In 1998, Shieber traveled across the country for a job interview at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. While in Cooperstown, he was shown the very diary that plays a starring role in his Schemel Forum presentation.<\/p>\n \u201cAs luck would have it, I was well-acquainted with Spalding\u2019s 1888-89 World Tour, and so when I returned to my hotel after the first day of my visit, I did much of the detective work that now, 27 years later, appears in my presentation,\u201d he said. \u201cIn fact, I like to think that the work I did to help solve the mystery of who penned the diary is part of the reason I was hired.\u201d<\/p>\n The diary, Shieber says, will never be mistaken as a great work of literature, but it does offer a glimpse into a world tour that took place just 16 years after the publication of Jules Verne\u2019s \u201cAround the World in Eighty Days.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhile the baseball tourists took a lengthier six months to circumnavigate the globe, the trip (and the diary) still retained the spirit of adventurism, romanticism and even danger found in Verne\u2019s classic novel,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n For those attending Shieber\u2019s presentation, he hopes \u201cthat with the combination of our national pastime with a long-ago trip to far-off lands both wrapped within a \u2018whodunnit\u2019 (or, in this case, a \u2018whowroteit\u2019) mystery, the presentation will have a little something for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n The University of Pennsylvania Museum has been excavating in Egypt for more than a century. During a Schemel Forum luncheon last fall, Dr. Wegner\u00a0discussed the role of fieldwork in the formation of the Egyptological collection at Penn, and the current project to reinstall this important collection of 50,000 artifacts.<\/p>\n In a much-anticipated second part of the Schemel Forum\u2019s exploration into Egyptian archaeology, this talk will focus on ongoing excavations at the site of Abydos where Dr. Wegner has been working on an excavation that, he says, reveals a lot of material about Egypt from 2000 \u2013 1000 BCE.<\/p>\n Work at Abydos has identified a royal necropolis at the site named \u201cAnubis Mountain.\u201d There, at least 13 kings who reigned between 1850 and 1650 BCE were buried. These include previously unknown pharaohs such as the King Seneb-Kay discovered in 2014, as well as the mysterious owner of new royal tomb just discovered in January 2025.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the largest tomb we have discovered from the Abydos Dynasty, and we are still searching for the identity of this new-found king,\u201d said Dr. Wegner.<\/p>\n At the lecture, Dr. Wegner will also present fresh-from-the-field findings from his excavation at the Abydos site this fall.<\/p>\n As Dr. Wegner points out, there\u2019s more to these excavations than discovering tombs.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re examining royal tombs for shreds of evidence that help patch together a window into life at a certain period of time \u2013 who these kings were, the nature of the kingdoms they ruled over and the social climate of that era,\u201d he said, noting that many aspects of Ancient Egypt are similar to our lives today.<\/p>\n Then and now, we are all searching for the answer to the fundamental question of \u201cwho we are as humans in the cosmos,\u201d said Dr. Wegner.<\/p>\n During the lecture, Dr. Wegner will also provide an update on Penn Museum\u2019s reinstallation of its collection of Egyptian artifacts. The first phase is expected to open in 2026 and the second phase in 2028.<\/p>\n Washington\u2019s post-Cold War foreign policy\u00a0consensus has broken up, and the race is on to define a new one. Yet so many in Washington remain wedded to an ideology of American primacy undergirded by global military power. There are strong signs that voters are ready for something\u00a0different. In every election\u00a0since the end of the Cold War, with the exception of 2004, Americans have voted for the candidate who offered a less militaristic, more restrained vision of American foreign policy. Duss will discuss these trends and their implications for the next general election in the U.S.<\/p>\n Admission to the seminars is free for University of Scranton and Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine students, faculty, staff and Schemel Forum members. For non-members, the seminars are $30 in-person (buffet lunch included) and $15 for remote access.<\/p>\n To register for the seminars, call 570-941-4740 or email rose.merritt@scranton.edu<\/a>.<\/p>\n To pay online, visit: www.scranton.edu\/schemelforum<\/a>.<\/p>\n Additional Schemel Forum events and information can be found on the Schemel Forum\u2019s webpage<\/a>.<\/p>\n Dean Aulisio spoke about the fall Schemel Forum schedule of events with WVIA\u2019s Erika Funke on ArtScene<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"a](\"https:\/\/news.scranton.edu\/articles\/2025\/09\/images\/schemel-l2.jpg\")
Next, on Monday, Oct. 20, Tom Shieber, <\/strong>senior curator at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York, will present \u201cAround the World with A.G. Spalding: The Mystery of an 1888-89 Tourist\u2019s Diary.\u201d His luncheon presentation will be held in the Rose Room of Brennan Hall on campus.<\/p>\n![\"a](\"https:\/\/news.scranton.edu\/articles\/2025\/09\/images\/schemel-l3.jpg\")
The fall luncheon series continues Thursday, Oct. 30, with a talk by Josef Wegner, Ph.D.,<\/strong> professor of Egyptian Archaeology; chair, Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures; and curator, Egyptian Section, Penn Museum, University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Wegner will present \u201cNew Discoveries of the Penn Museum Excavations at Abydos, Egypt\u201d at the luncheon being held in the Rose Room of Brennan Hall on campus.<\/p>\n![\"a](\"https:\/\/news.scranton.edu\/articles\/2025\/09\/images\/schemel-l4.jpg\")
The fall luncheon series will conclude Thursday, Nov. 21, with Matthew Duss, <\/strong>executive director, Center for International Policy, and former visiting scholar, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who will discuss \u201cAmerica is Ready for a Pro-Peace Foreign Policy. Is Washington?\u201d The presentation will be held in the McIlhenny Ballroom of the DeNaples Center at the University.<\/p>\n