The Associated Press Al Gore will visit
campus today to discuss new curriculum.
By Karen Albrecht
Daily Bruin Reporter
Visiting professor and former Vice President Al Gore is planning
to meet with students this morning to discuss ideas for a new
family-centered community development program.
The student discussion session, to be held in the Northwest
Campus Auditorium, is part of continuing efforts to fully develop a
strong community-building curriculum for the UCLA School of Public
Policy and Social Research and other universities, said Bill
Parent, assistant dean of the SPPSR.
“Everything is in a very preliminary planning stage right
now,” Parent said.
About 150 students studying community development were
pre-selected by their professors for today’s discussion,
based on previous experience in community-focused educational
activities.
Although the class was intended to consist of mostly graduate
students, professors were encouraged to nominate qualified
undergraduates as well, according to Dr. Neal Halfon, director of
UCLA’s Institute for Children, Families, and Communities, and
professor of pediatrics and public health.
To continue the planning process, Gore is scheduled to meet with
faculty members in the afternoon. Similar community-building
courses taught spring semester at other universities will be
evaluated for their strengths.
Broadcasting lectures for distance learning is also under
consideration, Parent said.
Gore, who still has an escort of secret service agents, plans to
lecture in a class at UCLA next year and help lead a number of
community-building symposia, Parent said.
The new curriculum is scheduled to be taught at several
additional universities in the fall as well.
UCLA faculty and local community leaders first met with Gore in
January to lay out a general outline for the new course.
The multi-disciplinary curriculum is intended to bridge the
differences between different sectors of the campus to achieve a
common community-improving goal.
Similar themes have been at the core of classes Gore has been
piloting at Middle Tennessee State University and Fisk University
in Tennessee over the past few months. Throughout the process,
several UCLA professors assisted him with the new courses, Parent
said.
Additionally, Gore completed a lecture series last week on media
coverage of national affairs during the information age at the
Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York.
There, too, UCLA faculty were involved in the teaching process,
according to a Columbia University statement.