YALE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE OFFICE OF PUBLIC INFORMATION
100 CHURCH ST. SOUTH, SUITE 212
P.O. BOX 7612 NEW HAVEN, CT 06519-0612
(203) 785-5824
Fax (203) 785-4327
Helaine Patterson - [email protected]
Karen Peart - [email protected]
HILLARY CLINTON TO ADDRESS 30TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION OF DR. JAMES P. COMER'S SCHOOL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM AT YALE
NEW HAVEN, Conn., April 15, 1998 - In 1968, child psychiatrist James P. Comer, M.D. and his colleagues at Yale University School of Medicine's Child Study Center developed a comprehensive strategy to improve schools known as the School Development Program (SDP). A generation later, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, a long-time supporter of Dr. Comer's work, will address a symposium celebrating the 30th anniversary of the program.
The one and one-half day symposium, Child Development: The Foundation of Education, will be held on Thursday, April 30, and Friday, May 1, at the Yale University School of Medicine and the Omni New Haven Hotel at Yale. The First Lady will speak at the Medical School's Mary S. Harkness Auditorium at 2:30 p.m. on Thursday.
Recognized nationally and internationally and much honored for his tireless work in promoting child-development principles as a means of improving schools, Dr. Comer presently serves as chairman of the School Development Program and as Maurice Falk Professor of Child Psychiatry at the Yale Child Study Center. At the symposium, Dr. Comer will address the topic, What's Ahead for the SDP?
"It has been an exciting but demanding 30 years," says Dr. Comer. "The symposium will provide an ideal opportunity for us all to reflect on the past, share new information, and consider how to use that information in the future."
Edward T. Joyner, Ed.D., executive director of the School Development Program, explains that the program is based on applying child and youth development principles to schooling and on mobilizing the support of adults.
"SDP was first introduced in two low-achieving New Haven public schools," says Dr. Joyner. "The results have been so positive that 30 years later the program has been adopted in more than 700 elementary, middle and high schools in 21 states, the District of Columbia, Trinidad and Tobago, South Africa and England."
Symposium speakers include Peter M. Senge, Ph.D., senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Organizational Learning Center. His topic will be Systems Change in Education. Donald J. Cohen, M.D., director of the Yale Child Study Center, will address the subject Child Development and Neuroscience: Converging Perspectives on Social and Intellectual Development.
A conversation on the topic Large-Scale Systemic Education Reform will feature the superintendents of four major school districts, including: - Jerry Weast, Ed.D., Guilford County Public Schools, North Carolina - James Williams, Ed.D., Dayton Public Schools, Ohio - Lester Young Jr., Ed.D., Community District 13, Brooklyn, New York and - Reginald Mayo, Ph.D., New Haven Public Schools, Connecticut.
In addition, Jeffrey Kane, Ph.D, dean of education at the C.W. Post campus of Long Island University, will moderate a panel discussion on the subject New Directions for Teacher and Administrator Preparation. Panel participants will be: - Jerome Clark, Ed.D., superintendent, Prince George's County Public Schools, Md. - Fred Hernandez, principal, The Foxfire School, Yonkers, New York and - Annette Vetre, sixth-grade teacher and team leader, Sheridan Academy for Excellence, New Haven.
Additional information on the SDP can be obtained on the Internet at http://info.med.yale.edu/comer or by writing to Comer School Development Program, Yale Child Study Center, 55 College St., New Haven, CT 06510-3208.
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