Paul Solman, business and economics correspondent for the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer since 1985, will speak at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 11, at the Edmund S. Muskie Archives, 70 Campus Ave., as part of “Spiritual Sojourners,” a series sponsored by the Office of the Chaplain at Bates College. The public is invited to attend free of charge. For more information, call the chaplain’s office at 207-786-8272.

The founding editor of the alternative Boston weekly The Real Paper (1972), Solman began his career in business journalism as a Nieman Fellow, studying at the Harvard Business school in 1976. He has been a business reporter for public broadcasting since 1977 and was the co-originator and executive editor of PBS’s business documentary series, Enterprise. His reporting has won Emmys for the last four decades and two Peabody awards, the most recent in 2004 for his reporting on the undercounting of unemployment.

Solman has served on the Harvard Business School faculty, teaching media, finance and business history. He co-authored the well-received Life and Death on the Corporate Battlefield (1983), which appeared in Japanese, German and a pirated Taiwanese edition. He lectures on college campuses, has written for numerous publications including both Forbes and Mother Jones magazines, and was named a member of TV Guide’s “Dream Team” of television reporters.

A one-time cab driver, kindergarten teacher and management consultant, Solman is the presenter for and author of Discovering Economics with Paul Solman, a series of videos released in 2004 by McGraw-Hill to accompany the company’s introductory economics textbooks. He is married with children and grandchildren.

Solman’s talk, the fourth in the series, will be followed by four additional 90-minute presentations throughout the balance of the academic year. Each talk begins at 4:30 p.m.

Rabbi Hillel Katzir of Auburn’s Temple Shalom Synagogue-Center discusses his journey of religious heritage, culminating in a mid-life career change, at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 1, in Skelton Lounge, Chase Hall, 56 Campus Ave., Bates College.

The public is invited free of charge to his talk, titled “Life as a Work in Progress: Stories of a Mid-Career Rabbi.” The talk is part of the series “Spiritual Journeys: Stories of the Soul 2005-06,” sponsored by the Office of the Chaplain. Call 207-786-8272 for more information.

Spiritual leader of Temple Shalom, Katzir was born and raised in Los Angeles, and lived in Israel for nine years in his 20s and early 30s. Upon returning to the United States, he attended law school and practiced law for 15 years in California and New Mexico. For several years he led High Holy Day services as a cantor in synagogues in the Southwest.

Katzir left the practice of law in 2001 to become a full-time cantor at a synagogue in the Midwest, where he discovered a love for the rabbinic role of teaching religion and spirituality.

He came to the Twin Cities in March 2003, when he accepted a position with Temple Shalom, and was ordained as a rabbi by the Rabbinical Seminary International in New York in 2004. Katzir lives in Lewiston with his wife, Suzan.

Katzir’s journey, he says, took him from an always-present, although vague and undefined sense, of spirituality to a strong foundation in Jewish religious practice as a means of spiritual expression. A man who embraces not knowing where his path will take him, Katzir will share his insights about remaining open to life’s ever-unfolding purpose.

Rabbi Hillel Katzir

Rabbi Hillel Katzir of Auburn’s Temple Shalom Synagogue-Center discusses his journey of religious heritage, culminating in a mid-life career change, at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 1, in Skelton Lounge, Chase Hall, 56 Campus Ave., Bates College.

The public is invited free of charge to his talk, titled “Life as a Work in Progress: Stories of a Mid-Career Rabbi.” The talk is part of the series “Spiritual Journeys: Stories of the Soul 2005-06,” sponsored by the Office of the Chaplain. Call 207-786-8272 for more information.

Spiritual leader of Temple Shalom, Katzir was born and raised in Los Angeles, and lived in Israel for nine years in his 20s and early 30s. Upon returning to the United States, he attended law school and practiced law for 15 years in California and New Mexico. For several years he led High Holy Day services as a cantor in synagogues in the Southwest.

Katzir left the practice of law in 2001 to become a full-time cantor at a synagogue in the Midwest, where he discovered a love for the rabbinic role of teaching religion and spirituality.

He came to the Twin Cities in March 2003, when he accepted a position with Temple Shalom, and was ordained as a rabbi by the Rabbinical Seminary International in New York in 2004. Katzir lives in Lewiston with his wife, Suzan.

Katzir’s journey, he says, took him from an always-present, although vague and undefined sense, of spirituality to a strong foundation in Jewish religious practice as a means of spiritual expression. A man who embraces not knowing where his path will take him, Katzir will share his insights about remaining open to life’s ever-unfolding purpose.

These two presentations are offered in conjunction with an exhibit of Bettenhausen’s photographs and poetry, Healthy, Holy Illness in My Head, to be displayed from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Mondays through Fridays from March 1 through April 14 in the Bates College Chapel, College Street. The public is invited to attend all of these events free of charge.

In December 1993, Bettenhausen collapsed on a city sidewalk. Tests revealed three neuroaneurysms, all of which required immediate surgery. The collection of poems and photographs explores her experience with this “spiritual-political-social-physical” journey.

Bettenhausen has taught at the Adult Learning Program at Project Hope in Dorchester, Mass., the Harriet Baldwin Elementary School in Boston, the Women’s Theological Center in Boston, Boston University School of Theology, the Harvard Divinity School and the Hartford Seminary. She received her bachelor’s degree in English and a doctorate in ethics and literary criticism from the University of Iowa.

Sponsored by the Office of the Chaplain at Bates, the Spiritual Journeys lecture series features speakers from a variety of traditions who tell the stories of their spiritual awakening and development. Speakers are invited to explore how they experience a sense of the holy in their everyday lives, how their perspectives and disciplines have shaped that sacred experience and how they understand religion as a resource or an obstacle to the life of the soul. Speakers may also address the political and social consequences of their spirituality.

Next in the Spiritual Journeys series, Portland photojournalist Jim Daniels discusses Witnessing Spirit: A Photojournalist’s View at 4:30 p.m. Monday, March 27, in Skelton Lounge, Chase Hall.