Center for Education Policy and Leadership
hosts spring 2008 colloquium on April 8 featuring Juan Williams

Colloquium topic ~ Enough: The 2008 Change Election

Juan Wiliams

COLLEGE PARK, MD (April 2008) – 'Change' has been the buzz word in the air as the heated race to win the Democratic party nomination for the 2008 presidential election charges on. Is it time for a change? Is America ready for a change? Can we make a change? National Public Radio Senior Correspondent Juan Williams tackles these questions in the spring 2008 colloquium of the Center for Education Policy and Leadership's (CEPAL) annual series, Diversity and Community in American Life, beginning 4:30 p.m. at the Nyumburu Cultural Center on April 8.

One of America's leading journalists, Williams' brings insight and depth to a wide spectrum of issues and ideas. From 2000-2001, he brought NPR's national call-in show Talk of the Nation to cities and towns across America, hosting monthly radio "town hall" meetings before live audiences. The meetings were a part of a year-long NPR series focused on how Americans are dealing with rapid changes in society and culture as the United States enters the 21st century. In 2004, Williams became involved with AARP's Voices of Civil Rights project, leading a veteran team of reporters and editors in the production of My Soul Looks Back in Wonder: Voices of the Civil Rights Experience. During his 21-year career at The Washington Post, he served as an editorial writer, op-ed columnist, and White House reporter. He has won an Emmy award for TV documentary writing and won widespread critical acclaim for a series of documentaries including "Politics-The New Black Power." Williams is the author of the critically acclaimed biography, Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary, and other nonfiction bestsellers. In his most recent book, Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America--and What We Can Do About It, he makes the case that while there is still racism, it is way past time for black Americans to open their eyes to the "culture of failure" that exists within their community.

Under the direction of Steven Selden, a professor in the Department of Education Policy Studies, the CEPAL Annual Series has hosted leading scholars from a broad array of fields. "The goal of the speaker series is to invite leading public intellectuals to our campus to discuss the vexing issues that face us as a democratic polity," notes Selden. "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."

Over the years CEPAL has collaborated with a wide range of university groups, colleges and departments, and private organizations in presenting the Annual Series. The spring 2008 colloquium is sponsored by The Philip Merrill College of Journalism, Office of the Provost, College of Education, College of Education Alumni Chapter, Office of Student Affairs, Pepsi Cola Foundation and the Maryland Institute for Minority Achievement and Urban Education.

For more information about CEPAL and the 2008 colloquium, please 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's research projects engage a range of partners across the country from schools and community-based youth organizations to local and state governments and federal agencies. A major strand of CEPAL's work involves the dissemination of timely research findings in a variety of formats to school and school district leaders, and policymakers in Maryland and Washington D.C., and to audiences nationwide.

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, occasional papers, a brown bag lunch series, 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 Studies at the University of Maryland College of Education, which ranks 25^th among the top colleges of education in the 2009 survey by U.S. News & World Report.