FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:Cara Halstead, Office of Public Information
Pace University, 914-773-3312, Cell: 914-906-9680, chalstead@pace.edu
PACE UNIVERSITY PLEASANTVILLE CAMPUS AND PROJECT PERICLES PRESENT POLITICAL ACTION WEEK FOR HUMAN RIGHTS FEBRUARY 22-24
Pleasantville, NY, February 18, 2005- Pace will host a series of events from Tuesday, February 22 through Thursday, February 24 as part of Political Action Week for Human Rights, an initiative by the University’s chapter of Project Pericles to support ongoing discussion and exploration of the ideas of civic engagement, political action and human rights.
Pace University is one of ten private institutions participating in Project Pericles, a national initiative funded by the Eugene M. Lang Foundation to provide a response to the growing sense of political alienation and apathy many young people feel today.
Among the various events scheduled to take place, internationally renowned author, activist and political scientist, Frances Fox Piven, will present a seminar exploring the question “Does Democracy Still Work?” on Wednesday, February 23rd, 11 am to 12 p.m. This event is free and open to the public and will be held in the Gottesman Room in Kessel Campus Center.
Piven was awarded the Eugene V. Debs Foundation Prize. She received the Lee/Founders Award of the Society for the Study of Social Problems award in 1991. In 1994, she was the recipient of the President’s Award of the American Public Health Association. In 2000, she was awarded the American Sociological Association’s Distinguished Career Award for the Practice of Sociology, among many other awards received throughout the years between and after the above listing of awards.
Piven’s passion for the exploration of the dynamics of the political arena is reflected in her many works on various national issues. Her writings, all co-authored with Richard Cloward, include Regulating The Poor, Why Americans Don’t Vote, The Breaking of the American Social Compact, The Mean Season and Poor People’s Movement, among several others.
Piven’s accomplishments include assisting in the decrease of extreme poverty in the 1960s, working alongside the head of the Welfare Rights Movement, George A. Wiley. She was also founding member of the successful 1983 campaign Human SERVE, which heavily influenced the design of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993.
Also being featured, Daisil Kim Gibson, Ph.D., recognized author, filmmaker, and award winning scholar. Gibson will present an illustrated lecture based on her documentary film, Silence Broken; Korean Comfort Women. This documentary is an oral history that chronicles the lives of Korean women forced into sexual servitude by the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II. These women now demand justice for the “crimes against humanity” committed against them, and their compelling testimony is presented side by side with interviews of Japanese soldiers and recruiters.
As part of Political Action Week for Human Rights at Pace, other events include:
• Tuesday, February 22nd , 3:25p.m. to 4:30p.m. the Honors College hosts a speaker from UNICEF, Aisha Webb, the Community Alliance Program Officer and US Fund for UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund) who will speak on the state of global children’s issues.
• Tuesday, Februart 22nd, 7p.m., there will be an off-campus event to see the film Hearts and Minds, which will be playing at the Jacob Burns Film Center. This controversial film, which recounts the history and attitudes of the opposing sides of the Vietnam War, uses archival news footage as well as interviews in a way that is timely even today. There will be a discussion to follow with Pace’s own, Michael Gillen.
• Thursday February 24th 6 p.m, a screening of Daisil Kim Gibson’s documentary film Silence Broken: Korean Comfort Women.
A private university in the New York Metropolitan area, Pace has a growing national reputation for offering students opportunity, teaching and learning based on research, civic involvement and measurable outcomes. Pace has seven campuses, including downtown and midtown New York City, Pleasantville, Briarcliff, White Plains (a graduate center and law school), and a Hudson Valley Center at Stewart International Airport near Newburgh, N.Y. Approximately 14,000 students are enrolled in undergraduate, graduate and professional degree programs in the Dyson College of Arts and Sciences, Lubin School of Business, School of Computer Science and Information Systems, School of Education, Lienhard School of Nursing and Pace Law School. www.pace.edu |