The long-awaited arrival of former Vice President Al Gore to the Tufts campus will become a reality next Friday. Gore, who will speak about "family-centered community building" and lead a symposium on the same topic, canceled his original Sept. 14 trip to Tufts after he was stranded in Austria due to flight delays in wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.
President Larry Bacow was "delighted" when he heard that Gore would reschedule the event. According to Bacow, Gore's topic "transcends politics," and will be well received by the larger Tufts community. Prior to the former vice president's expected visit this fall, controversy arose among students concerned by the limited number of participants. Deborah Bobek - managing director of the Applied Developmental Science Institute, which co-sponsored Gore's visit - said that adjustments have been made to appease student concern. According to Bobek, the initial 150 student invitations from last September are still valid, but another 25-50 participants will be included next week. In order to accommodate greater numbers, the event was moved from the Balch Arena Theatre to the larger ASEAN auditorium in the Cabot Intercultural Center. All students attending the event were recommended by department chairs and handpicked by a group of faculty members that included Child Development Professor Richard Lerner, who co-taught with Gore at Middle Tennessee State and Fisk Universities. Students were chosen according both to classes they had taken in the child development and psychology departments at Tufts and to other interests in the area of Gore's topic. Students will join the symposium in the afternoon and sit in the front of the auditorium, Bobek explained, while everyone else will be seated in the rear. Gore will speak along with a panel of youth leaders, and the participants will have the chance to ask questions afterwards. The discussion with Gore is designed to help with his work on the subject of family-centered community building for youth. Gore hopes to generate ideas for his new masters program on the subject.
"Gore is a superb lecturer and a masterful moderator and facilitator of discussions," Lerner said. "His efforts and leadership will be greatly appreciated by the participants in the conference." The original Gore visit in September was to be followed the next day by a discussion among leading experts in the field. The new schedule, while including more symposium participants, will only last a single day. But the symposium's objectives will still be met and students will still benefit from the experience thanks to creative reorganization of the schedule, according to Lerner.
He identified some of these objectives, guaranteeing that, "participants in the symposium will learn a great deal about the research, policy, and programs dimensions of promoting positive youth development through family-centered community building." Originally, Tufts was only one of 19 stops for Gore, who had hoped to visit other universities such as Cornell and Columbia in a national tour to develop a curriculum for a class he hoped to teach. It is now uncertain as to whether the rest of his tour is to continue as expected or whether any changes have been made to Gore's plans. Lerner is certain that University programs will benefit from Gore's visit. He said there will be "greater visibility for the leadership of Tufts University in merging scholarship with the values and interests of communities. In particular, the contributions of the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development and of the University College for Citizenship and Public Service... will gain greater recognition locally and throughout the state and nation."
