Periclean News

2008 Project Pericles Debating for Democracy Conference

2003 Periclean Conference

On April 3-4, 2003, the ten colleges and universities that make up the pilot group of Pericleans convened in New York City for the first annual Periclean Conference. The 146 delegates represented every constituency – presidents, provosts, deans, faculty, staff, students, trustees and alumni–creating what was perhaps the only such ecumenical conference of higher education in history.

Per the conference program, all delegates participated in two intensive days of plenary meetings, topical workshops and panel discussions. During the constituency and multi-constituency workshops, delegates grappled with specific issues that helped deepen their understanding of the Periclean mission and explore the challenges and responsibilities of their constituency roles in Program development. The workshop and plenary sessions stimulated collaborative relationships among Pericleans at personal and institutional levels, and they provided a learning experience that will facilitate individual Program development and guide the evolving agenda of Project Pericles.

The conference, by all accounts, was a great success–indeed, a defining event in the growth of Project Pericles. Its adjourning statement resolved that “all of us, together, have firmly and irrevocably staked our claim to the legacy of Pericles.” Much appreciated was the active involvement of Executive Planning Board and National Advisory Board members–including the provocative plenary observations of Stanford’s John Baugh and the stirring banquet remarks of Sens. Paul Simon and Harris Wofford. To introduce Project Pericles to a national audience, we invited The New York Times and The Chronicle of Higher Education to cover the conference, and two excellent stories resulted. The coverage has stimulated significant interest from many colleges and universities, civic and educational organizations.

Executive Director Named

Project Pericles is pleased to announce that on August 15, 2003, Dr. Karen E. Holt joined Project Pericles as its first Executive Director. Dr. Holt brings a wealth of experience from a long and distinguished career in education and the law.

Dr. Holt graduated from the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) with a B.S. in Zoology, received a J.D. cum laude from the Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisvill, and earned her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Tennessee. For the past six years she has directed the Office of Equal Opportunity Programs at the University of Virginia, where she was responsible for implementing and enforcing affirmative action and nondiscrimination policies. She served as an adjunct faculty member in UVA’s Curry School of Education, teaching a course in Higher Education and the Law. She served for twelve years as Assistant and then Associate General Counsel for the University of Tennessee, and taught courses on American Government and Administrative Law in the Department of Political Science. Prior to her position at UT, she served in the Civil and Civil Rights Divisions of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington.

Upon assuming her duties, Dr. Holt stated, “By working with colleges and universities to build social and civic responsibility into their regular educational programs, Project Pericles taps effectively into the idealism of youth and will have a transformative effect on higher education. I feel privileged to be taking part in fulfilling the vision that is Project Pericles.”

Distinctively American: The Residential Liberal Arts College

The concept of Project Pericles evolved out of an article about liberal arts education that Eugene M. Lang was invited to write for the journal Daedalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The article appeared in the Winter 1999 issue entitled "Distinctively American: The Residential Liberal Arts Colleges," Vol. 128, No. 1.

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