Selected Media Coverage: October 29, 2006

Barkey on BBC Turkey
10/26/2006 - BBC Turkey (cir. )

Gazette: Gifts and Bequests
10/26/2006 - Chronicle of Higher Education, The (cir. 100,000)

Parents’ Weekends Go Beyond Big Game
10/26/2006 - New York Times (cir. 1,142,464)

Lehigh University Receives $2.25 Million for Urban Leadership Center
10/22/2006 - Philanthropy News Digest (cir. )

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con_paperclip.gif alt= />Barkey on BBC Turkey
10/26/2006 - BBC Turkey (cir. )
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Henry Barkey was interviewed by the the British Broadcasting Corporation's (BBC) Turkish bureau. Though Barkey conducts the interview in English, which you can hear, the entire segment has been translated into Turkish. You can listen to the interview in its entirery by clicking on the paperclip to the left and hitting the Irak stratejisi link.

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con_paperclip.gif alt= />Gazette: Gifts and Bequests
10/26/2006 - Chronicle of Higher Education, The (cir. 100,000)
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Cornell College. To endow a program to prepare future business leaders: $5-million from James McWethy.
Lehigh University. To establish a Center for Urban Leadership in the College of Education: $2.25-million from Peter Bennett.
Pitzer College. To help build a new residence hall, for the endowment, and for scholarships: $15-million bequest from Roger C. Holden.
Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. For scholarships at the business school: $2.4-million bequest from Homer Cox.
Stanford University. To support the graduate school of business's publication, The Stanford Social Innovation Review: $1-million from William H. Draper III.
Syracuse University. For financial assistance to needy students: $26.5-million from the estates of Frederic N. and Eleanor Schwartz.
University of Hawaii-Manoa. To endow two professorships at the Shidler College of Business: $1-million from William R. Johnson Jr.
University of Massachusetts at Amherst. For unrestricted uses: $5-million from Douglas and Diana Berthiaume.
University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. For a neonatal intensive-care unit in a new hospital, the athletics department, capital projects, operating expenses, and a new scholarship: $4-million from David and Jan Brandon.
Yeshiva University. To establish the Ronald P. Stanton Legacy, a fund that the president of the university can tap into to start new projects: $100-million from Ronald P. Stanton

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con_paperclip.gif alt= />Parents’ Weekends Go Beyond Big Game
10/26/2006 - New York Times (cir. 1,142,464)
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WASHINGTON — Forget the traditional football game, the dry lectures and the meet-and-greet with professors and administrators. At some colleges, parents’ weekend has expanded into a far more elaborate ritual.
Take last weekend’s big-name entertainment and parental pampering at George Washington University.
As many as 5,000 parents descended on the campus in downtown Washington not far from the White House, where they could take an organized tour of city sites, attend a jazz brunch or a silent auction, get massages — and take in a show by Jerry Seinfeld, who performed twice at the university’s athletic stadium. Tickets ranged from $57 to $125; the 4,200 seats for each show sold out.
“This is the most elaborate, and nicest, parents’ weekend,” said Stephen Andolino of Whippany, N.J., outside the parents’ weekend registration area, which was loaded with giveaways, including T-shirts and stress balls.
Mr. Andolino and his wife, Rosalie, have put one child through college and have two others enrolled — one is at Georgetown — so they have a basis for comparison. The couple attended one of the Seinfeld shows with their son, Philip, 20.
Many universities do stick to the traditional template of football game and faculty lecture. Last weekend at Yale, for instance, in addition to the big game — Yale beat Penn by 17-14 in overtime — and performances of the Yale Glee Club, parents could attend faculty lectures on “Tolstoy’s Emblematic Death,” “Plagues and Pleasures” and “The Teaching of Theater in the Language Classroom.”
But George Washington is one of several universities where the traditional event has evolved into an eclectic menu of entertainment — from wine tastings and Charles River cruises at Boston University, to etiquette workshops for younger siblings at Lehigh University, to offers of discount tickets for Broadway shows at New York University, to the events at the University of Texas — an amphibious tour through the city streets and waterways of Austin, and a Texas barbeque with brisket, sausage and “all the trimmings.”
Community service is also popular. At Lehigh, parents can participate in a run to raise money for a local neighborhood center, while at American University in Washington, students and parents volunteered to help weed, mulch, plant trees and paint at a local elementary school.
For the colleges, elaborate parent weekends are a marketing tool, officials said. Parents are potential donors, and siblings are potential students. Often there are programs discussing whether the institution would be right for the sibling.
And with high tuition, the weekends are also a way to make the paying customers happy, said Craig Mack, director of the office that runs parents’ weekend at Boston University. “Parents want to spend time with their children, but they also want to see what they are getting for their money,” he said.
Mr. Mack added that competition fuels his planning. “We do look at other folks and see what they’re offering,” he said.
Universities in cities rich with cultural institutions also sometimes feel pressured to offer exciting alternatives to keep parents on campus, he said.
That is one reason George Washington started having well-known entertainers appear, said Rodney Johnson, head of the office that plans its event.
“There are a lot of places to go in Washington, but this type of event brings people together,” he said.
The university has put on ever more spectacular parents’ weekends for several years, and has been bringing big names to perform since 1999, when the Four Tops appeared. Jon Stewart, the Beach Boys, Ray Charles, Jay Leno, Whoopi Goldberg and the Boston Pops have also performed.
Mr. Johnson said celebrity acts were chosen particularly to appeal to parents. “Not many students will pay to see Whoopi Goldberg or the Boston Pops, but parents will,” he said.
He added that while parents’ weekends typically attract more freshman parents than those of older students, parents of juniors and seniors have been attending George Washington’s event in large numbers recently. The free massages, introduced to help relax those who had driven long distances, have been a particular hit, Mr. Johnson said.
Boston University held its parents’ weekend earlier this month. This year, many of the programs focused on fitness.
Parents could take a 5-kilometer “fun run” along the Charles River Esplanade, and could follow up with a “sculpt and stretch” class at the university fitness center. Or they could attend a lecture about the Framingham Heart Study, which has tracked three generations of New Englanders and identified the major risk factors for heart disease.
In the afternoon, some parents hopped on a riverboat cruise, while others signed up for a seminar on “retirement planning in an uncertain market.” A Friday evening performance on campus by the Second City, a comedy troupe, was sold out, as was a wine-tasting event.
“Baby boomers are into wine,” Mr. Mack said. “We could probably do a 1,500-seat wine tasting and fill it up.”
The last two years, parents could have dinner with the chef Jacques Pépin, whose daughter graduated from Boston University. This year, Mr. Pépin had a conflict, and so the event was not held. But in the past, he has selected the menu, recommended the wine, socialized and posed for photographs with parents.
“It was a hit,” Mr. Mack said.
New York University, which is to hold its event on Saturday, designs a one-day program focusing on undergraduate life. The rest of the weekend is unscheduled, although parents are given discount coupons for Broadway shows.
“We don’t take the posture that G. W. does of competing with the city,” said Mark Wais, vice president for student affairs. “We provide time to take advantage of all that the city has to offer. Our biggest performer is the president of the university.”
Still, even at the most elaborate weekends, parents visit dorms, meet their children’s friends, get a taste of day-to-day life on campus, and spend time with their sons and daughters.
At George Washington, the Andolinos said they would have made the trip for parents’ weekend anyway, but allowed that the entertainment was great.
“The kids always come to dinner, but it’s eat and run,” Mrs. Andolino said. “This way we can do something together, and we get to spend more time with them.”
Elizabeth Olson reported from Washington and Kate Stone Lombardi from Westchester County, N.Y.

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con_paperclip.gif alt= />Lehigh University Receives $2.25 Million for Urban Leadership Center
10/22/2006 - Philanthropy News Digest (cir. )
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Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, has announced a $2.25 million gift from alumnus Peter Bennett for the establishment of a Center for Urban Leadership at the school's College of Education.
The gift, the largest in the history of Lehigh's College of Education, will create research and professional programs to educate the next generation of urban leaders, particularly educational leaders who can effectively promote improvements in cities nationwide. Faculty members from Lehigh's other colleges will be encouraged to participate in the center's interdisciplinary research and education programs, helping students put tested science into practice. Next fall, Bennett's gift will also fund the recruitment of an endowed professor at Lehigh, who will serve as the center's executive director. To ensure that the center becomes self-sustaining, Lehigh plans to raise an additional $2.75 million over the next several years.
Currently a member of the College of Education's advisory board and a former university trustee, Bennett is chairman and CEO of Liberty Partners, a private investment company that purchased Edison Schools, Inc., a private, for-profit education management company that partners with government to rebuild and manage public schools. Students, teachers, and principals will all greatly benefit from stronger leadership and direction in America's urban schools, he said in announcing the gift. I hope this gift will help close the achievement gap, with the ultimate goal of improving the lives of inner city students.
Lehigh Receives $2.25 Million for Urban Leadership Center.
Lehigh University Press Release 10/13/06.
Location(s) Bethlehem, Pennsylvania