The Power of Love in Research, Planning and Education

Friday - Sunday, May 17 - 19, 1996

One in a series of events celebrating Mel King's quarter century of leadership of the MIT Community Fellows Program


Daily schedule of events

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This symposium finds its roots in an awareness of the impact that the love of power has on the current social, political and economic landscape of American society. While the symposium presents some of the ways in which the love of power manifests itself in such areas as politics, education and the media, its main focus is on the ways in which the power of love can inform research and planning and affect the prevailing pedagogical models used by planners and educators in their work. By presenting innovative planning and research models, we believe we will be creating new paradigms for planning practice and research.



For 25 years, MIT's Community Fellows Program, a nine-month-long program, has enhanced the professional skills of community organizers and leaders from low-income communities all the way from Mission Hill and Chelsea in Massachusetts to the Latino barrios of Seattle. Through courses, seminars, and individual research projects, Fellows strengthen skills and establish the kinds of professional ties that they might not find anywhere else.

The Program's mission has been two-fold:
1) to combine the grassroots, political know-how of community leaders with the expertise of MIT; and 2) to diminish some of the distrust of academia that existed in their communities by providing community leaders with a constructive setting to reflect, gain new skills, and establish a more positive relationship with academia.



Melvin H. King, M.Ed., Adjunct Professor of Urban Studies and Planning. Director of the Community Fellows Program. Specialist in design and implementation of vocational educational programs and community development. Member of the Massachusetts Legislature, 1973-83. Former Executive Director, New Urban League of Greater Boston, 1967-71.