For immediate release
March 20, 1998
Please call
Kevin McCaffrey
413-538-2987
or email [email protected]
Leading experts to tackle effectiveness of welfare reform at April 24 Mount Holyoke College symposium on "Fighting Poverty in the Post-Welfare Era"
By limiting lifetime welfare benefits to 60 months, the Welfare Reform Act of August 1996 abolished the safety net that needy families had relied on for the past six decades. Academics and practitioners have since been engaged in a heated debate about the likely impacts of welfare reform: Will states succeed in moving people from welfare to jobs, especially if there is an economic downturn? What kind of support policies are needed to enable welfare recipients to get and keep a job? How can we create enough jobs at a living wage? And which policies will be most effective to support people who fall through the cracks of welfare reform?
The new Mount Holyoke Center for Leadership and Public Interest Advocacy has invited four prominent experts with opposing points of view to examine the potential success or failure of current directions in welfare policy and to debate both the likely outcome of current reforms and what actions should be taken now to address the persistence of poverty in the 50 states.
Taking place on Friday, April 24 at 7:30 pm in Gamble Auditorium in the College Art Museum, the symposium is entitled "Fighting Poverty in the Post-Welfare Era: A Debate." The event is free, open to the public, and wheelchair accessible.
Moderated by New York Times reporter Jason DeParle, who has written extensively on welfare and social issues, the debate panel will include: Mary Jo Bane, the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; Diane Dujon, College of Public and Community Service, UMass/Boston; Frances Fox Piven, City University of New York; and Lawrence Mead, New York University.
"No issue goes to the heart of what role government can or should play regarding the well-being of our citizens more than the effectiveness of programs aimed at giving the disadvantaged the options and opportunities to live decent, productive lives," said Center director Eva Paus. "The Center for Leadership and Public Advocacy is committed to fostering solid understandings of the key issues facing our society and of the different approaches toward solving them as a necessary condition for both effective public interest advocacy and decision-making in the private sector."
One of a number of initiatives launched this year by the College, the Center for Leadership and Public Interest Advocacy emerges from Mount Holyoke's historic commitment to educating its students for careers of professional accomplishment and public interest advocacy. The poverty symposium is the second offered by the Center; on March 9 the Center sponsored a symposium with female corporate leaders on Smashing the Glass Ceiling.
For more information regarding this event and the Center for leadership and Public Interest Advocacy, call the Center at (413)538-3010 or check the Centers web page at www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/programs/cla
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