December 1, 2005

Upcoming events

Peter Dallos to deliver inaugural Roxelyn and Richard Pepper Lecture

Professor Peter Dallos — widely believed to have contributed more than any other living scientist to our understanding of the mammalian hearing organ known as the cochlea — will deliver the inaugural Pepper Lecture today (Dec. 1).

Co-hosted by President Henry S. Bienen and School of Communication Dean Barbara J. O’Keefe, the Pepper Lecture celebrates the naming of The Roxelyn and Richard Pepper Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders. It will begin at 4 p.m. at the James L. Allen Center. A cocktail reception will follow at 5:30 p.m.

In “Hearing: From Sound to Molecules,” Dallos will explain why the human ear is the most complex sense organ and how it converts and amplifies sound into signals that are then interpreted by the brain. His lecture is open to the University community.

A professor in The Roxelyn and Richard Pepper Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Dallos also is John Evans Professor of Neuroscience, professor of otolaryngology and professor of biomedical engineering.

For more information about the lecture, e-mail ana-davis@ northwestern.edu or call (847) 491-3751.

Klutznick lecture to feature Stanford historian

“Beyond Tevye: Rethinking the Jews of Tsarist Russia” is the title of the Philip M. and Ethel Klutznick Lecture in Jewish Civilization Monday, Dec. 5.

Steven J. Zipperstein, co-director of the Taube Center for Jewish Studies at Stanford University, will deliver the lecture at 7:30 p.m. in Pick-Staiger Concert Hall. Co-sponsored by the Crown Family Center for Jewish Studies and the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, the lecture is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.

Zipperstein, who also is the Daniel E. Koshland Professor in Jewish Culture and History at Stanford, writes on modern Jewish history and has published in professional and popular publications including the New York Times, Washington Post, New Republic, Partisan Review and Dissent. His forthcoming book is a biography of Chicago novelist and essayist Isaac Rosenfeld.

For more information, call (312) 357-4543.

Policy-makers weigh in about changes in social safety net

Leading experts will offer a policy briefing in Chicago about how the social safety net — from welfare to Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare — is being radically transformed at the same time that aging baby boomers are about to put unprecedented stress on society’s safeguards.

Hosted by the Institute for Policy Research, “The Evolution of the Social Safety Net: Change for the Better?,” will take place from noon to 1:30 p.m. Monday, Dec. 5, at the Kellogg School of Management on the Chicago campus.

Are the safety net programs for children, the poor and the aging living up to their potential? What do policy makers have to say about the rapidly changing system of benefits that have helped make millions of Americans healthier and more economically secure?

The program will include the following panelists and presentations:

• “Evaluating TANF: What Did (or Didn’t) Welfare Reform Accomplish?” by Rebecca M. Blank, dean of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan.

• “The Changing Role of Medicaid: From Babies to Boomers and Beyond” by Leemore Dafny, Institute for Policy Research faculty fellow and assistant professor of management and strategy.

• “The Increased Role of SSI in Addressing Child Poverty” by Melissa S. Kearney, fellow, economic studies, Brookings Institution.

The policy briefing moderator is Therese McGuire, Institute for Policy Research faculty fellow and professor of management and strategy.