Biology Professor Ken Miller is the centerpiece of a four-minute report about the challenge science teachers face when teaching evolution. Components of the piece were recorded during Miller’s standing-room-only workshop, “Darwin Denied: Teaching Evolution in a Climate of Controversy,” which was offered at the annual National Science Teachers Association conference held last month in Los Angeles. Audio is available for download, or listen online at http://www.voanews.com/english/AmericanLife/2006-05-24-voa23.cfm

Political Science Professor Darrell West is among the analysts interviewed for an article about the debate over the Iraq war that House Republican leaders plan to hold on the House floor in the coming weeks. Such a debate “is just going to unleash a discussion that Republicans can't win," West said. This article was distributed through the Knight-Ridder wire service and appeared in more than twenty other newspapers across the country, or their Web sites.

Brown University's Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice co-sponsored a forum in Warren as part of "Slavery and Justice - Our Other Heritage," an event that included presentations by Professor James T. Campbell, the head of the steering committee, and Susan Oba, a senior at Brown who has done research on Rhode Island's textile industry and its ties to the slave economy. Several attenders offered ideas about how Brown University could make redress for its relationship with slavery. Suggestions included scholarships for students descended from slaves, and making books on slavery and its effects required reading for Brown students.

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History is working with several universities - including Brown - to collect oral histories of braceros - migrant workers who traveled from Mexico to work on California farms between 1942 and 1964. Matt Garcia, associate professor of American civilization, helps oversee the interviews, which one day will be part of an Internet archive and a traveling Smithsonian Institution exhibition. Garcia said he hopes the workers' recollections will help lead to a more informed discussion of the guest-worker proposal now before the U.S. Senate.

Cynthia Garcia Coll, professor of education, psychology and pediatrics, was the keynote speaker at the fourth annual Breakfast of the Center for Hispanic Policy and Advocacy held in Warwick. Among her points: With the number of Latino children increasing from 16,000 in 1990 to 35,000 in 2000, poverty and barriers to education must be addressed.

Pennsylvania State University has revised its policies on nondiscrimination and intolerance to clarify what constitutes harassment and protected speech on its campuses. The changes come three months after the institution was sued in federal court over free-speech issues, but university officials said the changes were not prompted by the lawsuit. The Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative Christian legal-advocacy group based in Arizona, filed the suit in February on behalf of Alfred J. Fluehr, a junior and a political-science major at the University Park campus who alleges that Penn State's policies amounted to a speech code and violated his First Amendment rights.