Renowned Child Development Expert to Speak At UB

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- James P. Comer, M.D., internationally known expert on healthy child development and professor of child psychiatry at Yale University, will lecture at 4 p.m. Sept. 17 in the Center for Tomorrow on the University at Buffalo North (Amherst) Campus.

Comer's lecture, titled "Stop the Turnover: Kids Need Continuity," will be part of the Charlotte C. Acer Colloquium on Urban Education of the UB Graduate School of Education. Charlotte C. Acer, a UB alumna, has endowed a fund to facilitate informative and provocative lectures, discussions, recommendations, and analyses that address the complexities of urban education. The lecture will be free and open to the public.

Comer also will address a dinner of the UB Graduate School of Education Alumni Association to be held at 6:45 p.m. on Sept. 17 in the University Inn, 2401 North Forest Road, Amherst.

Maurice Falk Professor of Child Psychiatry and Director of the School Development Program at the Yale University Child Study Center, Comer also is the associate dean of the Yale School of Medicine.

He has devoted his career to promoting a focus on child development as a way of improving schools. He is the author of "Waiting for a Miracle: Why Schools Can't Solve Our Problems and How We Can," which asserts that schools are not the problem, but rather a reflection of problems in society.

Other books by Comer include "Rallying the Whole Village: The Comer Process for Reforming Education," "Raising Black Children," and "School Power: Implications of an Intervention Project."

Comer also has explored the historical and contemporary economic circumstances contributing to the black-white racial conflict in America in his book "Beyond Black and White."

Comer founded the School Development Program at Yale in 1968 to encourage the collaboration of parents, educators and the community to change inner-city, elementary schools in low-income areas from a state of chaos to one of academic and social achievement.