briefs

World-renowned community health expert Carl C. Bell will give a lecture at Pitt’s Center… World-renowned community health expert Carl C. Bell will give a lecture at Pitt’s Center on Race and Social Problems on Wednesday, Sep. 12 from noon to 1:30 p.m.

The lecture, titled “Mental Health Risk Factors in Nonwhite Populations”, is a part of the Buchanon, Ingersoll ‘ Rooney 2007 Speaker Series held by the CRSP each fall. The talk is free without registration to everyone and will include lunch.

Bell is the current president and CEO of Chicago-based Community Mental Health Council Inc. He is also a principal investigator with an HIV/AIDS youth prevention research project in South Africa called CHAMP.

Bell has run a psychiatric practice for 35 years and is a clinical professor of psychiatry and public health at the University of Illinois School of Medicine.

Most recently, Bell wrote “The Sanity of Survival: Reflections on Community Mental Health and Wellness” (Third World Press, 2004). He is also co-author of “Suicide and Homicide Among Adolescents” (Guilford Press, 1994).

Bell has published more than 350 articles on issues pertaining to mental health. He has appeared in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune Magazine, “The Today Show,” and “CBS Sunday Morning.”

Bell received the American Psychiatric Foundation’s first ever Minority Service Award in 2004, as well as the American Psychiatric Association’s Presidential Award.

The CRSP, where the lecture will be held, is located in room 2017 of the Cathedral of Learning.

For information call 412-624-7382.

-Henry Clay Webster Assistant News Editor

On Sep. 28 Pitt’s Allegheny Observatory will have an open house celebration open to the public.

The open house is free, but reservations are required and limited to six people per reservation.

Visitors will be allowed to use the 47-foot long Thaw Refractor telescope usually reserved for research. Members of the Amateur Astronomers Association of Pittsburgh will place telescopes on the observatory’s lawn for visitors to use. If the sky is clear that night, visitors should be able to see terrific views of Jupiter and the moon.

The Allegheny Observatory owns one of the oldest collections of photographic plates of star fields. The collection, which began in 1914, now includes more than 110,000 plates. The open house will allow the public to browse the large collection and glimpse the many research offices and laboratories in the observatory.

The open house begins at 7 p.m. and will last until 10 p.m. The Allegheny Observatory is located at 159 Riverview Ave., in Riverview Park.

Reservations can be made by calling the observatory at 412-321-2400 between 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. For more information, check the observatory’s website at www.pitt.edu/~aobsvtry.

-Henry Clay Webster Assistant News Editor

A new cooperative degree program being offered for the first time this fall allows aspiring litigators to earn a master’s in social work and a degree in law.

Because of the interconnectedness of the two fields, the program, run jointly by Pitt’s schools of Law and Social Work, fills a need for lawyers who also have expertise in social work.

Students must apply to both schools and be selected for the cooperative program, which offers special coursework in legal subjects like juvenile justice and low-income housing and social work areas such as child welfare.

The four-year program consists of five semesters in the School of Law and three in the School of Social Work.

Similar JD/MSW programs exist at Syracuse University and the University of Connecticut.

Cooperative law degrees are also available from the Katz Graduate School of Business, the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and the Graduate School of Public Health.

-D. Clark Denison, News Editor

Iranian author Azar Nafisi, whose book “Reading Lolita in Tehran” chronicles her life as an English professor at the University of Tehran under the conservative Islamic regime, will visit Pittsburgh as the first speaker of this fall’s Drue Heinz lecture series.

Nafisi was dismissed from the University of Tehran in 1981, after refusing to wear a traditional veil, but she continued to privately teach such works as Vladimir Nabokov’s sexual-charged 1955 novel “Lolita” and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby.”

In 1997 Nafisi, who holds a doctorate in American literature from the University of Oklahoma, left Iran for the United States. Her bestselling memoir was published in 2003.

Currently, Nafisi serves as a visiting professor and director of the Dialogue Project at the Foreign Policy Institute of Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

The lecture will be held on Monday, Sept. 24 at 7:30 p.m. at the Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland.

Tickets are available for $23 and can be purchased from Pittsburgh Arts and Lectures by calling 412-622-8866. Student discounts are available.

-D. Clark Denison, News Editor