Rockefeller Center turns 20, celebrates with events during fall term

Lectures scheduled on personal action and leadership

Published October 6, 2003; Category: EVENTS

The Nelson A. Rockefeller Center for the Social Sciences, or Rocky, as it is fondly known around campus, will mark its 20th anniversary this year with a series of programs on the theme "Civic Responsibility: Personal Action - Public Impact."

Rockefeller Center Director Linda Fowler said the theme "represents a rededication to the center's founding purpose of inspiring and training the next generation of public leaders."

"The focus on civic responsibility, with its call to personal action and public impact, reminds students that the privilege of a Dartmouth education carries obligations to the larger community," she said. Student discussion groups, presentations by people living lives of public service, and social policy dialogues will highlight the Rockefeller schedule throughout the year. (A partial list of events for October is included below.)

Proposed by Dartmouth President John Kemeny in 1979, the Rockefeller Center is an interdisciplinary center for research and teaching in the social sciences and public policy. It is named for former United States Vice President and Governor of New York Nelson A. Rockefeller, Class of 1930. In remarks delivered at the center's dedication in September 1983, Rockefeller's son, Rodman, noted that his father was interested in the "conversion of intellectual excellence to the realities of public life," and he charged the center to promote this same vision to Dartmouth students, a mission that still resonates in Rockefeller programs today.

At the time the center opened its doors, interdisciplinary programs and policy studies were relatively new concepts in academia. Even today, the Rockefeller Center is unique in developing a policy program that has undergraduates as a primary focus, according to Fowler.

"One of the objectives of a liberal arts education is the creation of thoughtful, engaged citizens and leaders," said Fowler. "In contemporary higher education, however, this goal is often lost in the competition for prestige and national rankings. No school wins a prize for training its alumni/ae to make the world a better place, but that doesn't lessen our responsibility to commit resources and energy to such an enterprise."

By TAMARA STEINERT

UPCOMING ROCKY PROGRAMS

For a full schedule of events and more information, visit the Rockefeller Center website

Wednesday, Oct. 8
3:30 p.m., 3 Rockefeller
"How I Built Teach For America and What I Learned Along the Way," Wendy Kopp, founder and President, Teach for America

Sunday, Oct. 12
7 p.m., Cook Auditorium
Class of 1930 Fellow Lecture: "Reflections on a Life of Public Service," Stephen Breyer, U. S. Supreme Court Justice

Tuesday, Oct. 21
4:30 p.m., 3 Rockefeller
"Differences Between U.S. and Foreign Press in Reporting on Iraq," Jim Kuypers, Senior Lecturer, Dept. of English

Tuesday, Oct. 28
4 p.m., 105 Dartmouth
"Protecting Civil Liberties and National Security After 9/11: How to Strike a Balance," Nadine Strossen, President, ACLU

Thursday, Oct. 30
4 p.m, 2 Rockefeller
The Brooks Family lecture: "Are There Limits to Financial Globalization?" Kenneth Rogoff, Professor of Economics at Harvard University and former Director of Research for the International Monetary Fund,.