For the first time, the University of California, Davis, will host the prestigious Tanner Lecture in Human Values, an all-day event to be held Monday, May 10. This year, the lecture will focus on the environment. Stanford University environmental history scholar Richard White will be the first Tanner lecturer to visit UC Davis. White will speak on "The History of Nature and the Problem of Purity," at 8 p.m. in the Main Theatre. Earlier in the day, a series of panel discussions on topics including watersheds, teaching and the environment, and politics and nature in California will be held at the Alumni and Visitors Center. White is the Margaret Byrne Professor of American History at Stanford. He is the author of six books, including "Remembering Ahanagran: Storytelling in a Family's Past," "The Organic Machine," "The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815," and "'It's Your Misfortune and None of My Own': A New History of the American West." He is a MacArthur Fellow, and was awarded Guggenheim and Rockefeller fellowships earlier in his career. Tanner lecturers are appointed to recognize uncommon achievements and outstanding abilities in the field of human values. Established by American scholar, industrialist and philanthropist Obert Clark Tanner in 1978, the lectures' purpose is to advance and reflect upon the scholarly and scientific learning relating to human values. The University of California is one of nine institutions to have an established Tanner lectureship; others include Harvard, the University of Michigan, Princeton, Yale and Stanford. An annual grant to each university provides for the lecture and related expenses. The panel discussions, which begin with an introduction at 8:30 a.m. in the Alumni and Visitors Center located at the corner of Old Davis Road and Mrak Hall Circle Drive, will include: o 8:30-11:30 a.m.: Watersheds: Ecosystems and Cultural Systems. Panelists will include Tanner lecturer Richard White; Jeff Mount, UC Davis geology professor; Michael Barbour, UC Davis environmental horticulture professor; John Melack, UC Santa Barbara ecology, evolution and marine biology professor; Debbie Niemeier, UC Davis civil and environmental engineering professor; and David Robertson, UC Davis English professor. o 1:30-3:15 p.m.: Teaching and the Environment. Panelists will include Tanner lecturer Richard White; Ken Verosub, UC Davis geology professor; Susan Davis, UC San Diego communications professor; John Walton, UC Davis sociology professor; and Louis Warren, UC San Diego history professor. o 3:30-5 p.m.: The Politics and Policy of Nature in California. Panelists will include Richard Howitt, UC Davis agricultural and resource economics professor; Marc Reisner, author of the book "Cadillac Desert"; Holly Doremus, UC Davis law professor; and Charles Goldman, UC Davis environmental science and policy professor and principal investigator with the UC Davis Tahoe Research Group. The panel discussions and the lecture are free and open to the public.