March 2, 2001

Volume 29, Number 21

Two-Week Issue

Newark councilman to present Harper Fellowship Lecture

Cory Booker, councilman of the Central Ward in Newark, New Jersey, will present the 2001 Harper Fellowship Lecture at the Law School on Monday, March 5.

Booker will discuss "Change and Challenge: Personal Lessons and Urban Effort" at 4:30 p.m. in Rm. 127 of the Sterling Law Buildings, 127 Wall St. The talk is free and open to the public.

In 1998 Booker successfully ran for city councilman of one of America's poorest and most crime-ridden communities. He defeated a popular 16-year incumbent and became at age 29 the youngest member elected to Newark's Municipal Council.

Booker has sometimes chosen unorthodox solutions to the problems of his community. He lived in a mobile home so that he could move as needed to troubled areas of his ward to address pressing problems. In 1999, he and many of his supporters spent 10 days and nights fasting in a tent by the drug-infested Garden Spires housing complex to garner support for more police presence and security for the residence.

With his reputation as an ardent community activist, innovative problem solver and passionate advocate for social justice, Booker's work has been recognized by Time magazine, The New York Times, CBS Evening News and other publications and news programs.

Booker earned bachelor's and master's degrees at Stanford University before continuing his education at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar and studying law at Yale. While at Yale, he ran a student legal clinic and volunteered in a local Big Brother program in New Haven, and worked as a legal advisor for a low-income tenants association in Newark.

Leff Lecture to be given by author of 'Bowling Alone'

Robert D. Putnam, author of "Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community," will present the Arthur Allen Leff Fellowship Lecture at the Law School on Thursday, March 8.

The talk will take place at 4:30 p.m. in Rm. 127 of the Sterling Law Buildings, 127 Wall St. The event is free and open to the public.

Putnam is the Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University, where he teaches courses in American politics, international relations, comparative politics and public policy. He is the founder of The Saguaro Seminar: Civic Engagement in America, a program that brings together leading practitioners and thinkers to develop broad-scale actionable ideas to fortify American civic connectedness.

Putnam received his Ph.D. from Yale in 1970. He is the author or co-author of 10 books and more than 30 scholarly works. These include "Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy," "Double-Edged Diplomacy: International Bargaining and Domestic Politics" and "Hanging Together: The Seven-Power Summits." His latest book, "Bowling Alone," was published last year.

Putnam sits on the Advisory Council on Environmentally Sustainable Development at the World Bank, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission, and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was nominated as president of the American Political Science Association for 2001-2002.

Noted gardener to discuss color planning at art gallery

In a lecture titled "Color for Gardeners: The Art of Looking" on Saturday, March 10, noted Connecticut gardener and writer Sydney Eddison will demystify the art of color planning in the garden.

The talk will take place at 1:30 p.m. at the Yale University Art Gallery, 1111 Chapel St. The program is free and open to the public.

Eddison will illustrate her talk with slides of paintings in Yale's collection as well as of compositions in gardens and containers. The lecture is offered in conjunction with the current exhibition "Objective Color," on view at the Art Gallery through March 25.

A lifelong gardener, Eddison is a frequent contributor to gardening publications, as well as The New York Times and other newspapers. She has written several books on horticulture. Her most recent book, "The Self-Taught Gardener," was published in 1997.

Eddison graduated from Smith College with a degree in theater and has taught drama for more than twenty years.

FES centennial lecture to focus on 'the nexus and the neem tree'

Robert Kates, professor emeritus at Brown University, will discuss "The Nexus and the Neem Tree" on Thursday, March 22, at 5 p.m. in Bowers Auditorium, Sage Hall, 205 Prospect St.

The talk, which is free and open to the public, is part of the Centennial Lecture Series on "Globalization and the Environment," sponsored by the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

In his lecture, Kates will discuss five critical goals in the areas of population, urbanization, agriculture, energy and materials, and environment that are required to achieve the transition to sustainable development. He will also explore how globalization might help or hinder the achievement of these goals.

Kates is executive editor of Environment magazine, a scientist at the George Perkins Marsh Institute of Clark University, a faculty associate of the College of the Atlantic, a visiting scholar at the Belfer Center for Science and Technology at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, and chair of the National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council's Coordinating Committee for a Transition Toward Sustainability. From 1986 to 1992, he directed the Alan Shawn Feinstein World Hunger Program at Brown.

The author and editor of 20 books and monographs on the environment, Kates was awarded the National Medal of Science by the President of the United States in 1991. His numerous other honors include a MacArthur Prize Fellowship.

T H I SW E E K ' SS T O R I E S

Study shows cocaine can harm brain permanently

Forums explore democracy on local level

Director Spike Lee slams 'same old' black stereotypes in today's films

Head of NFL explains the economics of running a football league

Brooks appointed to Sterling Professor of French and Comparative Literature

Nordhaus is Sterling Professor of Economics

YCIAS awarded Carnegie grant to support study of globalization

MEDICAL CENTER NEWS