(COLLEGE PARK, MD. — February 2004) — Critically acclaimed author bell hooks will speak on the topic of "Education and Community-Making" during a presentation to the University of Maryland academic community from 4:40 to 6 p.m. March 10, at Nyumburu Culture Center.

Dr. hooks’ talk is part of the Department of Education Policy and Leadership "Community and Diversity in American Life Colloquium Series, and is presented in the Provost’s Conversations on Diversity, Democracy and Higher Education Series.

Dr. bell hooks

As a tribute to her grandmother, the former Gloria Watson assumed her grandmother’s name, bell hooks. Considered one of the nation’s leading public intellectuals according to The Atlantic Monthly, hooks is a charismatic speaker and engaging speaker. She divides her time between teaching, writing and lecturing around the world. She has served on the English department faculty at Yale University and Oberlin College, and is presently a Distinguished Professor of English at City College and Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

She is the author of more than 17 books, including: All About Love: New Visions; Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood; Killing Rage: Ending Racism; Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life; and Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom.

The event is co-sponsored by the College of Education’s International Center for Transcultural Education, the College of Education Alumni Chapter Board of Directors, the Consortium on Race, Gender and Ethnicity, Phi Delta Kappa, the Maryland Institute for Minority Achievement and Urban Education, the Center for Teaching Excellence, the Curriculum Transformation Project, the University Honors Program, and the Center for Education Policy and Leadership.

The lecture is free and open to the community. For more information, contact Steven Selden, Department of Education Policy and Leadership, at: ss22umail.umd.edu.

To learn more about the Department of Education Policy and Leadership, visit:

www.education.umd.edu/EDPL

For more information on the College of Education, ranked 21^st in the nation for 2004

by U.S. News & World Report, visit: www.education.umd.edu