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Symposium to Honor Prof. Melvin King

Can the love of power become the power of love in America, and for whom does the bell curve toll?

Those questions will be addressed at a weekend symposium, "The Power of Love in Research, Planning and Education," to be held at MIT on Friday and Saturday, May 17 and May 18. The symposium is one of a series of events organized to mark Adjunct Professor Melvin H. King's 25 years of leadership with MIT's Community Fellows Program and in the community at large.

The keynote speakers will be Asa G. Hilliard III, the Fuller E. Callaway Professor of Urban Education at Georgia State University, and Kip Tiernan of the Poor People's Fund in Boston, the founder and former executive director of Rosie's Place.

The symposium has its roots "in an awareness of the impact that the love of power has on the current social, political and economic landscape of American society," the program for the event says.

The symposium will highlight some of the ways "in which the love of power manifests itself in. . . politics, education and media," but its main focus, its organizers say, will be on "the ways in which the power of love can inform research and planning and affect the prevailing pedagogical models used by planners and educators in their work. By presenting innovative planning and research models, we believe we will be creating new paradigms for planning practice and research."

The session on Friday, May 17, "For Whom The Bell Curve Tolls," will begin at 6:30 in Rm. 54-100. The moderator will be Hubie Jones. Panelists will be US Rep. Barney Frank, Diane Paul, Leon Kamin, Chester Pierce and Evelynn M. Hammonds.

On Saturday, May 18, the subject of the morning session in Kresge Auditorium will be "The Bell Curve: Implications for Public Policy, Planning and Education." The keynote address will be given by Dr. Hilliard.

From 10:30 a.m. to noon on Saturday, there will be workshops in Building 5 and Building 3, reached through the 77 Massachusetts Ave. entrance. Participants include Owen Brooks, Jeffrey Howard, Leon Kamin, Philip Morrison and Diane Paul. Topics include a critique of the book The Bell Curve, elections, money and drugs, the media, militarism, and corporations, international policy and immigration policy.

The second keynote address, by Kip Tiernan, will be delivered at 2 p.m. in Rm. 10-250. The title will be "The Power of Love: A New Paradigm for Research, Planning and Education."

More workshops will follow, starting at 3:30, and Professor King and others will lead a concluding "wrap-up" session which begins at 5:30.

Professor King, a member of the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, is a former Massachusetts state representative and candidate for mayor of Boston and the US Congress. He has long been in the forefront of community issues. Each year the Community Fellows Program, under his leadership, brings to MIT from 10 to 12 women and men working on issues that bear on people of color in America. Youth development, health and training are among the areas of concentration.

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