LAWRENCEVILLE, NJ -- Rider University's College of Continuing Studies will present a series of lectures by several of the University's outstanding faculty members. Each lecture in the Lunch Box series will feature a different topic and will provide some stimulating "food for thought."

All four Wednesday lectures, which are free and open to the public, will be held from noon to 1 p.m. in the Student Center's Fireside Lounge on the Lawrenceville campus. Audience members are invited to bring a lunch; coffee and tea will be provided.

The lecture schedule includes:

• An Earthly View of Martian Life, by Dr. Kathleen Browne, assistant professor of geological and marine sciences, will be held on Wednesday, April 9. NASA scientists recently announced the discovery of evidence of life in a Martian meteor found in Antarctica. What is the evidence and how do we know it suggests the presence of a life form? Dr. Browne will discuss evidence supporting the existence of life forms on Mars in the context of what we have found in Earth rocks.
• Why the Nation Needs More Lawyers, by Dr. James Castagnera, associate vice president for academic affairs/associate provost and associate professor of sociology, will be discussed on Wednesday, April 16. Dr. Castagnera will argue that rather than "kill all the lawyers" as Shakespeare once wrote, the solution lies in producing more and better attorneys. His assertion is that in a legalistic society like ours today, all citizens might benefit from some exposure to the theory and methods of legal reasoning so they can better solve their disputes.
• Arthematics: The Relationship Between Art and Mathematics, by Stefanie Mandelbaum, adjunct assistant professor of fine arts and management science, will be presented on Wednesday, April 23. Mandelbaum will discuss how mathematical concepts such as the Pythagorean theorem, the golden mean, limit points, and closed and open sets have influenced the composition of painting, sculpture, and architecture for thousands of years, including her own work of the past 20 years.
• Senior Sonorities, by Mark A. Miller, lecturer of music history and former host/producer of Music Room on WWFM, will be held on Wednesday, April 30. This musical presentation will feature the music written by composers after the age of 55. Works of Beethoven, Brahms, Rachmaninov, Rimsky-Korsakov and others will be sampled, and comments from their contemporary critics will be examined.

For more information about the Lunch Box Lecture Series, contact Karen Crowell, assistant dean of the College of Continuing Studies, at (609) 896-5033.

Rider University's Lawrenceville campus is located five miles south of Princeton and three miles north of Trenton on Route 206 in Lawrence Township. The campus is one-half mile south of exit 7A of Interstate 95.