Members of the Rotary Club of Jamestown learned more about Science Friday from the club’s newest member during a recent meeting.

Ruth Lundin, Rotary Club of Jamestown president, introduced George Harper, Rotary’s speaker. Harper is a new member of the club and a biology baccalaureate graduate of the State University at Fredonia with a doctorate in biology from the University of North Carolina. Later, as a professor at Hendrix College, he established the Hendrix Science Communication Initiative to promote effective science communication. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Harper and his wife Jennifer, also a club member, moved to the greater Jamestown area where Harper served at the Roger Tory Peterson Institute, and then in August 2023 accepted the position of stewardship manager at Science Friday, a job involved in the financial and donor support of the program.

Harper described a strong resonance between the goals of Science Friday and Rotary International in their shared commitment to making significant changes for good in the world. Science Friday is a weekly, two-hour radio program founded in 1991 as a 501(c)(3) by Ira Flatow. The show is aired on nearly 500 stations across the nation to present new and important scientific information to the public. It is a conversational presentation of scientists engaged in important projects of discovery. Locally the program is heard on Saturday from 1 to 3 p.m.) and Friday night from 10 p.m. to midnight on WBFO/WUBJ.

The program’s mission was to present science in a way that would make it engaging, accessible, and useful in everyday life and conversations. Science Friday’s stated values, Harper said, are nearly identical to Rotary’s Four-Way Test, focusing on integrity, honesty, community, and trust, along with the additional values of innovation, curiosity, and equity. Harper then presented a point-by-point, stepwise explanation of how Science Friday promotes all of Rotary’s causes, from promoting peace, health, resource management, maternal and child wellness, education, economy and infrastructure, AI, and environmental stewardship. The concepts do not only describe past activities, but potentials for future work by Rotary. Harper and Flatow suggest there is a blank check to invest in the future. The challenge, they say, is to do it wisely and well, beyond words and with good intentions, focused on purposeful action.

As is the case with all of Rotary’s guest speakers, Lundin said a donation in Harper’s name will be made to Rotary’s worldwide End Polio initiative, assuring that four children will never contract polio.