Former presidential candidate Al Gore will visit Tufts on Sept. 14, conversing with undergraduates and professors as part of a nationwide series of discussions focused on family-centered communities.
Though the announcement was greeted with excitement, some students are displeased with the size of the audience, which has been capped at 150 students to encourage substantive interaction with the former vice president.
"The forum is being kept small so true discussion can be held among the students and Gore," said Deborah Bobek, managing director of Applied Science Initiatives, one of the departments responsible for bringing Gore to campus.
But many students say that Gore's prominence calls for a larger audience. "It's against what Tufts believes in: equal opportunity for everyone," sophomore James Mitchell said. "We should be entitled to the same benefits."
At Tufts, Gore will use the conversation to elicit ideas for a masters program curriculum in family-centered community building, which he is developing with a consortium of 19 universities.
In addition to Gore's forum with undergraduates, a symposium will be held in Nelson Auditorium on Saturday, Sept. 15 for experts in youth development. The Tufts visit is the first in a series of similar events to be held at consortium schools throughout the academic year.
Dean of Natural and Social Sciences Susan Ernst, who is coordinating the event along with child development Professor Richard Lerner, has asked each academic department to recommend five students to attend the speech. From this list, a group of faculty members including Ernst and Lerner will select the final 150 students to attend the event.
The committee will look for students with a diversity of academic interests, Ernst said, including those taking courses in departments directly relating to the topic, such as child development and psychology.
Tufts Democrats President Sarah Molenkamp said that many students have expressed concern to her about the event. If she were arranging the visit, she said, it would be held in a bigger venue.
"This is the former vice president and former presidential candidate coming to Tufts," Molenkamp said. "It's an opportunity that a lot of people could benefit from."
But junior Nick Nguyen said that upper classmen selected by their professors would benefit more from such the lecture than would eager freshmen. "If you've been in college for a few more years, you're better equipped to appreciate a speaker of this caliber," he said.
Gore taught a course entitled "Family-centered Community Building" at Fisk and Middle Tennessee State universities last semester and invited Tufts child development professor Richard Lerner to speak on youth development in both classes.
In his course, Gore addresses the role of family, analyzing "how we can strengthen the lives of families by building communities to support healthy child development," Lerner said.
"One of the problems that we've had in our society is that we tend to split off programs for policy from those for kids, from family [policy], from community [policy]," Lerner said. "Mr. Gore has provided a vision for looking at all those levels in an integrated manner."
The programs include environmental, fiscal, and social initiatives, Lerner said, such as ensuring that children have a safe place to go after school. Gore is looking into "what is developmentally important for the child, and what resources exist to help families bring up healthy kids," Lerner explained.
Since the presidential election, Gore has focused much of his time on teaching. "Gore has been keeping a very low profile both at Columbia and at the two Tennessee universities," said Richard Eichenberg, a political science professor.
In his political career, Gore has focused his agenda on family and community building. "Gore was instrumental in pushing federal policy on a variety of initiatives designed to strengthen communities and to build social capital," political science Professor Kent Portney said.
Though the Tufts speech will be decidedly apolitical, Eichenberg said that Gore will nonetheless use the occasion to listen to the issues that are important to voters.
"He is trying to stay in the background," Eichenberg said. "He certainly hasn't challenged President Bush."
"Gore is trying to find his feet in terms of the issues he's going to come back with," Eichenberg said.
