Service

Speaker Series

During the academic year, the center hosts a monthly series of lunchtime lectures. These talks provide an opportunity for faculty, students, and community members to engage in race-related discussions of mutual interest.

We are very happy to have the support of two major Pittsburgh law firms, Buchanan Ingersoll and Rooney PC and Reed Smith LLC. Where many other similar institutions might have shied away from the highly-charged topics with which we engage, these firms have sponsored the speaker series for the six academic years from September 2004 to April 2010.

We thank these firms for recognizing the importance of race in our society, the necessity of developing real-world solutions to our country's defining social problem and the value of sharing knowledge and engaging in dialogue on the issues before us.

Reed Smith Spring 2008 Speaker Series:

All lectures are from noon to 1:30 pm in the School of Social Work Conference Center, 2017 Cathedral of Learning. Lunch will be provided; registration is not required.

Monday, January 14

Ms. Kerry O'Donnell, President, Falk Foundation, The Erosion of Civil Rights and Community Responses.

Thursday, February 28

Dr. Thomas M. Shapiro , Professor of Law and Social Policy, Brandeis University, Assets for Change: Closing the Racial Wealth Gap.

Wednesday, March 19

Dr. Devah Pager, Associate Professor of Sociology, Princeton University, Race at Work: Discrimination against Black and Latino Job Seekers.

Tuesday, April 8

Dr. Ronald B. Mincy , Professor of Social Policy and Social Work Practice, Columbia University, The Experiences of Black Fathers with Low Incomes.

Previous Speakers

Conference

"Fifty Years After Brown: New Solutions for Segregation and Academic Underachievement"

In May 2004, the Center on Race and Social Problems presented an all-day conference commemorating a landmark in American history-Brown v. Board of Education. This event was the second in the Pittsburgh Brown Commemoration series, organized in conjunction with Duquesne University. We thank the Heinz Endowments and The Pittsburgh Foundation for their generous support of this conference.

Brown radically changed the face of America, ushering in an era of opportunity previously denied to millions. Great strides have been made to close the racial education gap, yet the full promise of Brown remains unrealized. Now we need new solutions, solutions as radical as Brown was 50 years ago.

Our guest speakers and panelists explored current problems related to segregation and academic underachievement. Each presentation was followed by an audience question-and-answer period.

Guest Speakers:

Dr. James P. Comer is a Child Psychiatry Professor at the Yale University School of Medicine Child Study Center. He has concentrated his career on promoting child development and on the collaboration of parents, educators, and community to improve social, emotional, and academic outcomes for children.

Kati Haycock is Director of The Education Trust. The Trust provides hands-on assistance to urban school districts and universities that want to work together to improve student achievement, kindergarten through college, and focuses particularly on those who are poor or members of minority groups.

Dr. Gary Orfield is Director of the Harvard Project on School Desegregation, and Founding Codirector of the Harvard Civil Rights Project. His central interest has been the development and implementation of social policy, with a central focus on the impact of policy on equal opportunity for success in American society. School desegregation and the implementation of civil rights laws have been central issues throughout his career.

Dr. Abigail Thernstrom is a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Thernstrom is also a member of the Massachusetts State Board of Education and a commissioner on the United States Commission on Civil Rights. Her work focuses on education achievement, race and ethnicity, and affirmative action.

The conference concluded with a discussion by a panel of local educators and education policy experts: Helen Faison, Director of the Pittsburgh Teachers Institute; William Isler, President of the Pittsburgh Public Schools Board of Directors; Janet Schofield, Senior Scientist at University of Pittsburgh Learning Research and Development Center and Professor of Psychology; and John Thompson, Superintendent of the Pittsburgh Public Schools.

Complete summary

Inaugural Lecture

The center was officially inaugurated in March 2003 with a speech by Julian Bond, chair of the NAACP. Over 1000 individuals from the community at large were in attendance to hear Mr. Bond’s speech Civil Rights: Then and Now.