2009 Lecture Series
2009 presents vast opportunities and challenges for the United States and the entire world. Include the Public Forum as an interactive part of your analysis of our unique times as we consider the following topics:
All Public Forum lectures are held at Springfield Symphony Hall, beginning at 7:30 p.m. and are free to the public.
*The Legacy of Ted Kennedy (Boston Globe Editorial Page Editor and author of Last Lion, Peter Canellos) September 30, 2009
* Urban Education and Poverty Amelioration (Harlem Children's Zone President and CEO Geoffrey Canada). This lecture is the culmination of 2009 City Thinks programming, "Education, Poverty and a Call to Action." November 4, 2009
*The Rise of India and India/US Relations (World Policy Institute Senior Fellow Dr. Mira Kamdar) November 18, 2009
*Documentary-Making and Our National Parks (Filmmaker Ken Burns) December 1, 2009
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The Legacy of Ted Kennedy: September 30, 2009
Author of Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy, Peter Canellos
Peter Canellos is the editorial page editor at the Boston Globe, and has most recently published Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy. The book draws upon interviews with Kennedy family members and friends to provide a profound portrait of one of America's greatest statesmen. In an interview for NECN, Canellos said that the book was motivated by the outpouring of feeling for the Senator after he was diagnosed with cancer and puts the entire Kennedy story into perspective. Canellos commented, "This is somebody about whom people had very fixed opinions. Positive opinions from the 60's, some negative opinions from the 80's. People hadn't really looked at Kennedy's overall legacy. We thought this was actually a really good time to do [the book,] an excellent time to do it."
Before managing the editorial page, Cannellos had been the Boston Globe's Washington bureau chief and author of the weekly "National Perspective" column for 6 years. In this position, he directed all of the Globe's national coverage. From 1999-2003, he served as metro editor for the Globe overseeing all of the local coverage. Cannellos covered the 1992 and 1996 presidential campaigns, has served as a national roving correspondent and was once the Sunday writer emphasizing legal affairs.
Canellos is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia Law School.
Sponsored by:
Education Revolution: The Zone Project November 4, 2009
Geoffrey Canada, Innovative Head of the Harlem Children's Zone
Revolutionary educator Geoffrey Canada, President and CEO of the Harlem Children's Zone, has had quantifiable success in helping the most impoverished, at-risk youth beat the odds through a comprehensive approach to education and poverty eradication. His "conveyor belt" approach to education starts with "Baby College" parenting classes for expectant mothers and fathers and continues with educational, medical and social services through all levels of school. The philosophy is that if you "fix" the schools but not the community, the children will fail but they will also fail if you "fix" the community but not the schools. It all must be improved..
Described by New York Times reporter Paul Tough as one of the "greatest social experiments of our time," the Harlem's Children Zone now serves a 94-block area of Harlem with "a 'safety net' woven so tightly that no child can fall through." And, the Children's Zone is achieving results: the Wall Street Journal reports that 3rd graders and 8th graders in Children's Zone schools are scoring at or above grade level and outperforming their peers throughout New York State. Recognized by the new Obama administration as a potential model to solve educational and poverty issues throughout the nation, the Children's Zone offers strategies and solutions for regions challenged by poverty and under-performing schools.
Radically ambitious and effective, Canada, who grew up in the Bronx, is a graduate of Bowdoin College and Harvard University. His innovative work has won many accolades including the Heinz Award, the Harold W. McGraw Jr. Prize in Education and recognition as one of "America's Best Leaders" by U.S. News and World Report.
Sponsored by:
Irene E. and George A. Davis Foundation
Doherty, Wallace, Pillsbury & Murphy P.C.
Planet India November 18, 2009
India Expert Mira Kamdar
Dr. Mira Kamdar is a foreign affairs expert, award winning author and international commentator. Her areas of expertise include India and China, their economies, environments and relationships with other world powers, including the United States.
Mira Kamdar's latest book is Planet India: The Turbulent Rise of the World's Largest Democracy and the Future of our World. The book has been translated and published in Hindi, Chinese, Arabic, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and French. Her critically acclaimed memoir, Motiba's Tattoos: A Granddaughter's Journey from America into her Indian Family's Past was a 2000 Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection and won the 2002 Washington Book Award.
Kamdar has been a Senior Fellow at the World Policy Institute since 1992, and is a 2008 Bernard Schwartz Fellow at the Asia Society. She is a member of the editorial boards of World Policy Journal and India Review.
Kamdar's work has appeared in publications around the world, including The Washington Post, The Times of India, Daily News & Analysis, Outlook, The International Herald Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, World Policy Journal, Tehelka, Seminar, as well as YaleGlobal, the online publication of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization. She has provided expert commentary and been interviewed for radio and television outlets as diverse as CNN International, Bloomberg TV, the BBC, National Public Radio, TV Ontario, Public Radio International, Headlines Today, South Asia World, TV Asia, TV 5 Monde and FR 3. She is a regular contributor to the blogs of Le Monde Diplomatique, World Policy Journal, and Intent.
Kamdar received her BA from Reed College and her MA and PhD degrees from the University of California at Berkeley. She was a Thomas J. Watson Fellow in 1980 and a Danforth Graduate Fellow in 1981-85.
Sponsored by:
Wilbraham Monson Academy, The Global School
America's Best Idea: Our National Parks December 1, 2009
Acclaimed Director and Producer of documentary films Ken Burns
Ken Burns has been making documentary films for more than 30 years. Since the Academy Award-nominated Brooklyn Bridge in 1981, he has gone on to direct and produce some of the most acclaimed historical documentaries ever made. The late historian Stephen Ambrose said of Ken's films, "More Americans get their history from Ken Burns than any other source." A December 2002 poll conducted by RealScreen Magazine listed The Civil War as second only to Robert Flaherty's Nanook of the North as the "most influential documentary of all time" and named Ken Burns and Robert Flaherty as the "most influential documentary makers" of all time.
Ken's latest film, The National Parks: America's Best Idea, will air on PBS in Fall, 2009. Acclaimed for its use of historical footage and current materials, The National Parks is the story of an idea as uniquely American as the Declaration of Independence and just as radical: that the most special places in the nation should be preserved, not for royalty or the rich, but for everyone. As such, it follows in the tradition of Burns's exploration of other American inventions, such as baseball and jazz.
The narrative traces the birth of the national park idea in the mid-1800s and follows its evolution for nearly 150 years. Using archival photographs, first-person accounts of historical characters, personal memories and analysis from more than 40 interviews, and what Burns believes is the most stunning cinematography in Florentine Films' history, the series chronicles the steady addition of new parks through the stories of the people who helped create them and save them from destruction. It is simultaneously a biography of compelling characters and a biography of the American landscape.
The director or producer of over 20 films, Ken Burns has received many awards for his work, including Grammys, Emmys, and Peabody Awards, among many others. Some of Burns' most acclaimed past documentaries are The War, a seven-part series that tells the story of the Second World War through the personal accounts of nearly 40 men and women from four American towns; Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson, and Jazz, the third in Ken's trilogy of epic documentaries, which began with The Civil War and continued with Baseball. Of Jazz, John Carmen of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote, "Jazz informs, astonishes, and entertains. It invites joy, tears, toe-tapping, pride, and shame and maybe an occasional goose bump." Jazz premiered on PBS in January 2001. The New York Times called The Civil War a masterpiece and said that Ken Burns "takes his place as the most accomplished documentary
Ken was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1953. He graduated from Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1975.
source: www.pbs.org
Sponsored by: