On February 26, 2004, Kenneth Wong, Professor of Public Policy and Education, Political Science, and Associate Director of the Peabody Center, will give a public lecture as part of the “Race and Wealth Disparity in 21st-Centruy America” Lecture Series. The talk is tentatively titled “Federal Education Policy as an Anti-Poverty Strategy.” (Lecture time and location will soon be announced.)

The lecture series is an off-shoot of the research circle cosponsored by The Warren Center and the Vanderbilt Law School. The project is funded by the Ford Foundation and directed by Beverly Moran, professor of law and sociology at Vanderbilt University. Members of the research circle are working to bridge the gap between their separate disciplines by sharing each field’s unique insights and methods with one another and with the general public, through a series of private workshops and public lectures, as well as the development of teaching materials for use in the classroom.

Participants in the program include faculty members from five colleges within Vanderbilt University (College of Arts and Science, Law School, School of Medicine, Owen School of Management, and Peabody College), Fisk University, Meharry Medical Center, and Tennessee State University. Also participating in the program is Michele Flynn, executive director of the Tennessee Network for Community Economic Development, a not-for-profit organization committed to increasing asset acquisition among the working poor. Recently, Ms. Flynn gave a lecture in the series titled “The Wealth of the Fathers: Impacting the Next Generation.”

The lecture series began in the fall of 2002 and will continue through spring of 2004.