Center for Education Policy and Leadership
presents 2006-07 Annual Series;
colloquia set for FEB. 5, FEB. 12

Series Theme: "Diversity and Community in American Life"

COLLEGE PARK, MD (January 2007) – It will be a poetic start for the 2006-07 Annual Series on “Diversity and Community in American Life”, presented by the College of Education’s Center for Education Policy and Leadership (CEPAL). The spring series leads off on Monday, February 5, with U.S. Poet Laureate Donald Hall, who will read selections of his work followed by a book signing. The session begins 4:30 p.m. at the School of Architecture auditorium.

Donald Hall

Hall has published 15 books of poetry, beginning with Exiles and Marriages in 1955. Earlier this year, he published White Apples and the Taste of Stone: Selected Poems 1946–2006, a volume of his essential life’s work. Among his books for children, Ox-Cart Man won the Caldecott Medal. His 20 books of prose include Willow Temple: New and Selected Stories (2003), The Best Day the Worst Day: Life with Jane Kenyon (2005), and a collection of his essays about poetry, Breakfast Served Any Time All Day (2003). He has written extensively about life in New Hampshire in Seasons at Eagle Pond (1987) and Here at Eagle Pond (2000). He is currently working on a third volume, Eagle Pond, scheduled for publication in 2007. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Hall has been honored with the Marshall/Nation Award for The Happy Man (1987), both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Award for The One Day (1988), the Lily Prize for Poetry (1994), and two Guggenheim Fellowships.

Michael Apple

On Monday, February 12, feature colloquium speaker will be Michael W. Apple—the John Bascom Professor of Curriculum and Instruction and Educational Policy Studies at University of Wisconsin-Madison. The topic of discussion for the session is also the subject of one of Apple's most recent books, Educating the "Right" Way: Markets, Standards, God, and Inequality. He has written extensively on the relationship between differential power and educational policy and practice. Included in his works are The State and the Politics of Knowledge, and the 25th anniversary 3rd edition of Ideology and Curriculum. He is the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Educational Research Association and the UCLA Medal for Distinguished Academic Achievement. Apple is also a Professor of Educational Policy Studies at the University of London’s Institute of Education.

The CEPAL Annual Series has been host to an impressive array of leading scholars over the years. "The goal of the speaker series is to invite leading public intellectuals and policy makers to our campus to discuss the vexing issues that face us as a democratic polity," says the director of the Annual Series, Professor Steven Selden, Department of Education Policy and Leadership. "To that end we have indeed been quite successful. Past speakers have tackled challenging questions ranging from social justice in relation to race, class, and gender to the meaning of evolutionary theory and social policy, feminist thought, the U.S. legal system and the history of racism"

The Department of Education Policy and Leadership collaborated with a number of university groups, colleges, departments, and private organizations to present the Annual Series. Supporters of the spring 2007 colloquiums include the Office of the Provost, College of Education, College of Arts and Humanities, Undergraduate Studies, Office of Student Affairs, School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, and the College of Education Alumni Chapter.

For further information on the CEPAL Annual Series, email Professor Steven Selden at: selden@umd.edu.

Background Information:

About the Center for Education Policy and Leadership

The Center for Education Policy and Leadership (CEPAL) aims to foster connections between the research and practice of urban education policy and leadership in public elementary schools, secondary schools, and institutions of higher education in the United States. Its focus stems in part from two main assumptions:

• deep ties to practice are essential to the generation of useable research
• practice can be enhanced with strong connections to research

CEPAL sponsors various events that promote dialogue between researchers and practitioners about contemporary issues in K-16 policy and leadership. Its activities focus on critical issues in education policy and leadership through research projects, colloquia, policy briefs, a brown bag lunch series, occasional papers, and LEADS , a semi-annual publication featuring research that addresses education policy and leadership issues.

The Center for Education Policy and Leadership is housed in the Department of Education Policy and Leadership at the University of Maryland College of Education, which ranks 24th among the top colleges of education in the 2007 survey by U.S. News & World Report.

For further information about the Center, visit: http://education.umd.edu/EDPA/CEPAL/index.htm