Commencement Forums

An outgrowth of the teach-ins of the early 1970s, Brown’s Commencement Forums, which begin at 9 a.m. Saturday, May 26, offer a window on the intellectual world of Brown and beyond. They bring together experts drawn from the University’s faculty, alumni, parents, and honored weekend guests to discuss issues of national concern.

The forums are free and open to the public. Times and locations are subject to change. Last updated: 5/9/01

For more information, call the Office of University Events at 863-2474.

Technical assistance is available for the hearing-impaired. Most forum sites are handicapped-accessible. Those with special needs who plan to attend should contact the Office of University Events at 863-2474 (weekdays between 8:30 a.m. and 5 p.m.) or Brown Police and Security at 863-3322 (after business hours and on weekends) at least 24 hours before the event.

9 a.m.

Salomon Center, Room 101

Today’s stars — for instance, Laura Linney and Tim Nelson — make it to the big screen through their own talent and work. After Brown, Linney and Nelson studied at Juilliard and approached their acting careers with discipline, hard work and the street smarts Brown grads are famous for. Linney, who has been in more than 20 films, is best known for her role as Jim Carrey’s wife in "The Truman Show" and her Academy Award-nominated performance in "You Can Count on Me." Nelson most recently appeared alongside George Clooney in the Coen brothers’ "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" and is filming "Minority Report" with Tom Cruise.

List Art Building, Main Auditorium

Did President Woodrow Wilson’s vision of a collective international resistance to aggressive conflict perish with the 160 million people who died during the 20^th century? Professor James Blight examines the lessons of conflict and carnage, and offers a pragmatic historical and philosophical argument for avoiding war and achieving sustainable peace. Drawing from his recently published book, "Wilson's Ghost: Reducing the Risk of Conflict, Killing, and Catastrophe in the 21st Century" (co-written with former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara), Blight details the moral imperatives and foreign-policy initiatives required to support a revitalization of Wilson's dream.

Sayles Hall

Politicians decry the decline of values in American society, while citizens lament the corruption and poor morals of their elected officials and civic and business leaders. Are we really less ethical than we were 50 years ago, or has an increased media presence heightened our awareness of unsavory activities that have always existed? The panel will reflect on the ethical, moral and religious trends of the past several decades and will speculate on the role that "good old-fashioned values" may play in America's future.

Salomon Center, Room 001

The 1900s are out of sight on our calendars, but not out of mind — especially at the Smithsonian, where historians and museum curators are charged with preserving the century's defining moments as well as its shortcomings. How will the Smithsonian, the foremost caretaker of American heritage, capture the soul and the significance of the recent past while maintaining the relevance of its older exhibits? Larry Small offers a sneak peek at what this venerable 155-year-old repository has in store.

MacMillan Hall, C.V. Starr Auditorium, 167 Thayer St.

Do our genes determine our destiny? Pioneering geneticist Jon Beckwith believes that despite the isolation of specific genes for language or intelligence, complex human traits are never traceable to single genes. Beckwith, who in 1969 became the first to isolate a gene, will reflect on the historical and contemporary role of genetics in society. He will also offer a perspective on the recently discovered human genome map and what it can — and can’t — tell us.

10:15 a.m.

Salomon Center, Room 101

After rendering oversized insects in "James and the Giant Peach," creating an army of aliens for "Starship Troopers" and taking home an Oscar for his cast of talking barnyard animals in "Babe," special-effects wizard Scott Anderson took on his biggest big-screen challenge: creating a digital human being for "Hollow Man." Anderson will discuss the artistic, physiological, dramatic and technical issues and processes involved in creating his digital version of actor Kevin Bacon.

MacMillan Hall, C.V. Starr Auditorium, 167 Thayer St.

Our speculation about extraterrestrial life has progressed from stories about dying alien civilizations to sophisticated probes of the universe. Intriguing clues in our own solar system, as well as the detection of an abundance of distant planets, suggest that extraterrestrial environments suitable for life may be numerous. Are we alone? In the coming decades, we may well find out. Chyba holds the Carl Sagan Chair for the Study of Life in the Universe at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute.

List Art Building, Main Auditorium

Before feminism, a generation of women leaders used charm, grace and relentless aspiration to earn themselves places of influence and power in a man’s world. Many of today’s young women aspire to professional success — but not at the expense of more traditional femininity. For role models they look not to the heroes of the women’s liberation movement, but rather to the grand dames of an earlier era. Marie Brenner recently published "Great Dames: What I Learned from Older Women," a collection of intimate portraits of some of the most remarkable women of the last century.

Stuart Theater

Did a walk in a Danish park change the course of history? In September 1941, Werner Heisenberg, Germany's top atomic scientist, visited Niels Bohr in Copenhagen. The meeting reunited two Nobel Prize-winning physicists, mentor and student, who were now on opposite sides of World War II. What did they talk about? Did Heisenberg ask Bohr about the Allies' plans? Did he sabotage his own German team's progress toward developing the A-bomb? Using Michael Frayn's Tony-award-winning play "Copenhagen," the panelists offered a new course at Brown this spring that considered this little-known meeting through the lenses of quantum physics, political theory, modern history and contemporary drama.

Salomon Center, Room 001

Standardized test scores indicate widening educational achievement gaps between the races, and schools, particularly in the Northeast and in large, heavily black urban centers, remain highly segregated. What can and should be done to rectify this enduring inequality? Drawing from his recently published "Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and Its Troubled Legacy," James Patterson examines race relations and school segregation of the past half-century while considering the tough questions and elusive answers facing America in the next 50 years.

Sayles Hall

Having lost their freedom, their livelihood and often their families, many U.S. prison inmates are turning for help to Barry Scheck and the Innocence Project. Founded at Cardozo School of Law in 1992 by Scheck and Peter Neufeld, the project provides pro bono legal assistance to convicts challenging their guilty verdicts with new DNA evidence. Since its founding, the project has helped overturn 37 wrongful convictions; FBI estimates suggest that thousands more incarcerated innocents remain. Scheck, whose landmark litigation has set the standard for forensic applications of DNA, leads a conversation about DNA technology, the future of criminal defense in the United States, and the legal resurrection of innocence.

2:15 p.m.

Sayles Hall

As courts around the world struggle with issues of hate speech, privacy, criticism of judges, and economic rights, they draw upon a democratic constitutional philosophy John Adams developed in the 1700s. Many of his ideas — particularly his insistence upon an independent judicial branch — were embodied in the constitutions of both Massachusetts and the United States. Margaret H. Marshall, a scholar of constitutional democracy, will explore the effects of Adams’s constitutional model on new democracies and old, from South Africa and Slovenia to Canada and Britain.

Salomon Center, Room 001

Eleven years ago, neuroscientist Alan Zametkin’s New England Journal of Medicine article revealed that hyperactivity in children and adults is a biological disorder diagnosable with medical imaging and easily treated with medications such as Ritalin. Today, more than 3 million U.S. children take Ritalin. Are too many parents overwhelmed by the task of parenting their rambunctious children? Zametkin will review the lessons of the past decade, detail recent and coming developments and offer his take on the limits and the potential of hyperactivity treatment.

MacMillan Hall, C.V. Starr Auditorium, 167 Thayer St.

Faced with encroaching industrialism and a rapidly expanding population, American conservationists of the past two centuries strove to protect pockets of the country’s wilderness by establishing national parks. Often overlooked in these environmental victories, however, were the citizens who lived and worked on the newly regulated land. These residents found that the fundamental activities of their livelihoods — such as hunting, fishing or logging — were suddenly considered crimes in the eyes of the government. Drawing on their recently published books, "A Country in the Mind" and "Crimes Against Nature," Professors Thomas and Jacoby will discuss the varied ways Americans have thought about their national parks.

3:30 p.m.

Salomon Center, Room 101

Museums are among the targets of national debates about whose history receives the guided tour and whose is rendered invisible. Spencer Crew leads this discussion about bearing witness to all American histories and balancing popular and political opinion with a scholar’s concerns.

Sayles Hall

Many Americans believe that the AIDS crisis is over. But new drugs that allow people to live longer remain unaffordable or unavailable to more than 90 percent of the millions infected with HIV, and they do little to stop its transmission to others. HIV threatens the economic and political stability of many regions of the world, yet no vaccine has been developed to control the disease’s spread. Even if researchers can overcome the scientific hurdles, there are few incentives for pharmaceutical companies to concentrate on vaccines instead of profitable therapeutic drugs. Larry Corey will discuss competing issues and interests in the quest for an HIV vaccine.

Salomon Center, Room 001

Who will look out for the public interest during the conservative Bush administration? Join public-interest attorneys Perales, Sherman and Stotland in a discussion that will consider changes that may occur during the Bush presidency, including challenges facing labor, immigration, child support and poverty law.

MacMillan Hall, C.V. Starr Auditorium, 167 Thayer St.

Nearly a decade ago Bill Cosby’s trailblazing "The Cosby Show" ended its nine-year run on network television. Today only a handful of prime-time sitcoms provide a similar weekly window into black homes, and few are as idyllic as the Huxtables’ lives. BET president Debra Lee surveys the new landscape of programming and the changing television images of black families.