Tay Gavin Erickson Lecture Series

Through the Tay Gavin Erickson Lecture Series, CRF brings nationally recognized speakers with expertise in family research to campus each year. The speakers provide public lectures, highlighting the importance of research on the family and its implications for public policy, and provide research consultation to CRF Family Research Scholars. The lecture series began in 1999 though an endowment established in memory of Tay Gavin Erickson.

2008 Tay Gavin Erickson Lectures

SUSAN H. LANDRY, Ph.D.

Michael Matthew Knight Professor of Pediatrics
Director, Children's Learning Institute at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston

"Responsive Parenting: What Is It and When Is It Most Important?"

Thursday, April 17th at 4:00 p.m.
620 Thompson Hall

Dr. Landry is a developmental psychologist and nationally recognized expert in early childhood education. Her research into environmental factors that promote early cognitive growth and development led her to develop the framework for the Center for Improving the Readiness of Children for Learning and Education (CIRCLE) and then to the implementation of the Texas Early Education Model (TEEM) in pre-kindergarten classrooms across Texas. Dr. Landry conducts many research projects and training activities that promote quality learning environments for young children. She is using the knowledge gained from years of study to help promote the national goals of early childhood literacy initiatives.

Dr. Landry's numerous research programs, supported by the National Institutes of Child Health and Development, foundations, and the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, have resulted in a large research database on early childhood. More than 70 peer-reviewed publications and over a dozen chapters describe the findings of these research studies. This event is co-sponsored by the UMass Amherst Center for Research on Families.


KATHERINE S. NEWMAN, Ph.D.

Director, Institute for International and Regional Studies
Princeton University

"Failure to Launch? Delayed Departure from the Family Home in Western Europe and Japan"

Monday, May 12th at 2:00 p.m.
620 Thompson Hall

Millions of Americans work full time and year-round but still live below the poverty line. Even more families are "near poor," with incomes that put them above the magic line, but make them vulnerable to financial disaster. In her recent research, Katherine Newman finds that the working poor share values and goals with many middle-class Americans: they want their children to succeed where they have faltered; they want to live in safe, secure neighborhoods; they look to the work world as a place in which to find meaning, even in menial jobs. Yet the commonalities with the middle class end with the barriers they face. In periods of high growth, labor market opportunities open up and make it possible for the working poor to become upwardly mobile. But in bad times, employer resistance, the consequences of erratic ties to the labor market generated by family demands, and the difficulty of piling up more educational credentials come home to roost.

In addition to leading the Institute for International and Regional Studies at Princeton, Katherine S. Newman is the Malcolm Forbes Class of 1941 Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs there. Formerly the Dean of Social Science at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and the Malcolm Wiener Professor of Urban Studies in the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Newman has written eight books on topics ranging from urban poverty to middle class economic insecurity to school violence. Her most recent book (in collaboration with Victor Chen), The Missing Class (Beacon Press, 2007), is an analysis of the condition of the near poor in American society. With colleagues at the Indian Institute for Dalit Studies, Newman has just completed work on four related projects on labor market discrimination. In summer 2006, she completed a five-country study on the prolonged stay of young people in their parents' homes in Western Europe and Japan, which is the basis of her Tay Gavin lecture and a forthcoming book. Newman has won a number of awards, including the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Book Prize and the Hillman Book Award, and appears frequently on public radio and television.

All presentations are free and open to all.

These lectures are co-sponsored by the Center for Public Policy and Administration at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

2007 Tay Gavin Erickson Lectures
2006 Tay Gavin Erickson Lectures