Jonathan Kozol Speaking in Cleveland Tomorrow (9/28)

From a Cleveland State University press release:

CLEVELAND, September 18, 2006 — Jonathan Kozol — educator, activist, author of more than ten books and winner of the National Book Award — will visit Cleveland on Thursday, September 28 to give the President’s Lecture at Cleveland State University at 3 pm and speak at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral at 7 pm. Both events are free and open to the public.

For more than 40 years, Jonathan Kozol has worked with children in inner-city schools, first as a teacher and now as a chronicler of the experiences of children. At both of his Cleveland lectures, Kozol will discuss his newest book, The Shame of The Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America. The book, new in paperback, chronicles his recent time in nearly 60 public schools and the startling, dismal conditions that prevail there for African American children. In the book, Kozol writes, “I look around me at the faces of the children…and often see them also searching into mine, and I cannot discern the slightest hint that any vestige of the legal victory embodied in Brown v. Board of Education or the moral mandate that a generation of unselfish activists and young idealists lived and sometimes died for has survived within these schools and neighborhoods.”

Kozol’s lecture at Cleveland State University will be in Drinko Hall in the Music and Communication Building, 2001 Euclid Ave. Cleveland State will also hold a panel discussion with CSU professors and community leaders, moderated by Dean of the College of Education and Human Services Dean James McLoughlin, on Thursday, October 5 from 3:00 pm until 5:00 pm in the Fenn Tower Ballroom - 3rd floor.

“The President’s Lecture is meant to spark lively intellectual conversation that should be happening regularly on campus,” said President Michael Schwartz. “We have some of the finest minds and keenest intellects at our University. Put them together with thought-provoking, perhaps controversial, guest speakers and the ideas, opinions and stimulating discussion will flow.”

Kozol’s lecture at Trinity Cathedral will be in the Nave, with lighted parking adjacent to the building off Prospect. Trinity’s interest in hosting Jonathan Kozol resulted both from the congregation’s ongoing volunteer work at its neighborhood public school, Marion Sterling, and from Kozol’s relationship with St. Ann’s Episcopal Church in the South Bronx, which he chronicled in his book Ordinary Resurrections. “Trinity Cathedral is a piazza: a place where the church stands at the crossroads of life,” said the Very Reverend Tracey Lind, Dean of Trinity. “We seek to be a place where people from all walks of life can meet to discuss the important — and sometimes difficult — issues of the day. We welcome Jonathan Kozol’s voice to the essential conversation about how we can help educate children in America’s poorest city.”