Grain & Chaff

Around the Five Colleges

Broadcaster Bob Costas keynotes "Baseball's Future: Competitive Balance and Labor Relations," a conference at Smith College on Nov. 17 at 1:30 p.m. in Wright Hall Auditorium. Panelists include Clark Griffith, Marvin Miller, Randy Vataha, Roger Noll, Allen Sanderson and Smith professor Andrew Zimbalist. ... MacArthur "genius grant" winner Carolyn Bertozzi of the University of California, Berkeley, speaks on "Chemistry and Biology at the Surfaces of Cells" on Nov. 20 at 5 p.m. in L-1 Cleveland Hall, Mount Holyoke College. Bertozzi's research on the chemical biology of carbohydrates is tied to new ways to treat various diseases, including diabetes and arthritis. ... Novelist, essayist, short-story writer and Massachusetts native Elinor Lipman discusses fiction writing on Nov. 19 at 2 p.m. in the Forbes Library, Northampton. The event leads off this year's "Sundays at Two" series sponsored by the library and Smith College.

Book shelf

Stephanie Luce, assistant professor of Labor Studies, and Economics professor Robert Pollin discuss their new book, "Living Wage: Building a Fair Economy," on Nov. 28 at 7 p.m. at the Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley. ... "Political Will and Personal Belief: The Decline and Fall of Soviet Communism" by professor emeritus Paul Hollander of Sociology was reviewed in National Review (Nov. 6). The review called Hollander "an astute observer of the gap between ideological belief and reality." The book was published last year by Yale University Press. ... A new work on biodiversity by Jason Van Driesche and his father, Roy Van Driesche, Extension professor of Entomology, drew praise in a Christian Science Monitor review (Nov. 9). According to reviewer Tom Palmer, "Nature Out of Place" is highly organized, well edited, bristling with photos, maps, and tables, and it justifies its arguments in a convincing, businesslike manner."

Personal histories

Afro-American Studies professor David DuBois tells the Chronicle that biographies of his parents have been published recently. "W.E.B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919-1963" is the second volume of a work by David Levering Lewis, Martin Luther King Professor of History at Rutgers University. The first volume of the biography won the Bancroft, Parkman and Pulitzer prizes and was a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle award. Lewis' work is published by Henry Holt and Company. Levering, by the way, drew upon the Du Bois papers housed on campus. ... Also new in bookstores is "Race Woman: The Lives of Shirley Graham Du Bois" by Gerald Horne, professor of history and director of the Institute of African-American Research at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Horne's work explores Graham Du Bois' life as a Harlem Renaissance playwright, biographer, composer, teacher, novelist and political activist who championed the civil rights movement, African liberation struggles and socialist development in China. "Race Woman" is published by New York University Press.

Domino effect

Berkshire Community College dean Robert L. Pura has been named interim president of Greenfield Community College. He's replacing Charles C. Wall, who is leaving this month to be the new deputy chancellor of the state Board of Higher Education.