News Sources: Drivers Licenses for Illegal Immigrants

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's plan to grant illegal immigrants driver’s licenses has encountered a wave of opposition among New York State voters and politicians. In response to those concerns, he has announced the endorsement of the proposal by Richard A. Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism czar. Reporters looking for experts to interview on this topic can find them online at the collegenews.org database of news sources and subject matter experts from America's leading liberal arts colleges, including the following (click on names for contact information):

Dean Hubbard - Professor of Public Policy, Sarah Lawrence College - Holder of the Joanne Woodward Chair in Public Policy, Hubbard’s expertise focuses on issues of immigrant laborers, U.S. labor law, employment discrimination and community organization.

Robert Smith - Assistant Professor of Sociology, Barnard College - Smith is the co-author of a report to U.S. State Department comparing InterAmerican and Mediterranean-European migration systems. He is the author of numerous articles on immigration, and is currently revising a book on Mexican immigration.

Miguel Tinker-Salas - Chair of Latin American studies, Pomona College - Tinker-Salas' areas of expertise include contemporary Latin American immigration and the Diaspora; Mexican border society; Mexico in the 19th and 20th centuries; Latin American history; and Chicanos/as and Latinos in the United States.

Dribblin' in Dublin?

This summer, Lafayette College senior Paul Cummins exchanged his school's colors of maroon and white for the green of his native Ireland and took advantage of the opportunity of a lifetime to represent his country on the international basketball stage. America may be the Mecca for basketball, but Cummins says the international game continues to improve and American programs can benefit from lessons learned traveling overseas.

A Digital-Age "Safe House" for Mexican Immigrants

At first glance, the Casa Segura (The Safe House) may appear to function more like a miniature, digitalized Red Cross station than a work of art. The small solar-powered structures are being placed on properties across the Sonoran desert and are stocked with basic essentials such as water, medical supplies, and nutritional items. But Robert Ransick, a digital arts faculty member at Bennington College, has also equipped the structures with a dynamic bilingual web space that allows Mexican immigrants to share stories via an embedded touch screen interface.

News Sources: Offering Birth Control to Sixth-Graders

Portland, Maine, school officials are about to consider a proposal that would enable students at King Middle School to obtain birth control prescriptions from the school's health center. King would become the first middle school in Maine to make a full range of contraception available to students in grades 6 through 8. Reporters looking for experts to interview on this topic can find them online at the collegenews.org database of news sources and subject matter experts from America's leading liberal arts colleges, including the following (click on names for contact information):

Lyn Mikel Brown - Associate Professor of Education and Human Development and Women's Studies, Colby College - Brown is a founding member of the Harvard Project on Women's and Girls' Development, and the co-author of Meeting at the Crossroads: Women's Psychology and Girls' Development. She is an advisory board member for the Fox Family Networks' Boyz Channel and Girlz Channel, and a member of the American Psychological Association's Presidential Task Force on Adolescent Girls.

Frank Kirkpatrick - Professor of Religion, Trinity College - An exceptionally articulate speaker on morality, ethics and community issues, Kirkpatrick co-authored the book Living Issues in Ethics, which examines recurring social, economic and political themes in life and news. Kirkpatrick has spoken in the media on such topics as sexuality, business ethics, environmental issues, school prayer, political correctness, political campaigns and foreign policy.

Betsy Hartmann - Director of the Population and Development Program, Hampshire College - Hartmann is the author of Reproductive Rights and Wrongs: The Global Politics of Population Control. She writes and lectures frequently on population and development issues, both in U.S. and globally and is a long-standing member of the international women's health movement.

Why Truth Doesn't Always Win

Having escaped from war-torn Bosnia as a child, Sanja Jagesic knows about the frailty of justice in a harsh world. As a 21-year-old sociology student at Wellesley College, Sanja now immerses herself in research to explain why truth doesn't always win in a contest of ideas. Her work suggests that status and prestige affect knowledge proudction, and it has caught the attention of leaders in the field.

Students Working with Stem Cells

"Stem Cells and Cloning," a new biology class at Swarthmore College, lets students conduct research using embryonic stem cells from mice. It is believed to be the first and only course of its kind in the country.

News Sources: Turkey and the Armenian Genocide Debate

A debate over killings that took place in the World War I era threatens to damage current relations between the U.S. and Turkey. Turkey's top general has warned that ties with the U.S. would be irreversibly damaged if Congress passes a resolution declaring the killing of Armenians to have been genocide. After a House committee approved such a resolution, Turkey - a major cargo hub for U.S. and coalition military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan - recalled its ambassador to Washington for consultations last week and said it might curtail its logistical support of the U.S. military. Twenty-three other countries have already acknowledged the genocide. Reporters looking for experts to interview on this topic can find them online at the collegenews.org database of news sources and subject matter experts from America's leading liberal arts colleges, including the following (click on names for contact information):

Jennifer Abbassi - Associate Professor of Political Science, Randolph College - Abbassi is an expert on international law and human rights, and is co-editor of an upcoming international law anthology and has done work on the Milosevic trial.

William Felice - Professor of Political Science, Eckerd College - Human rights activist Felice was the representative to the U.N. for the International League for the Rights of Peoples 1986-1992. His research and scholarship focuses on normative issues of rights and justice within our global society. He is the author of Taking Suffering Seriously and The Global New Deal: Economic and Social Human Rights in World Politics.

David Lesch - Professor of History, Trinity University - Lesch is an expert on Middle East and American foreign policy and the author of 1979: The Year that Shaped the Modern Middle East. He is a consultant to the U.S. State Department, has traveled across the Middle East to Syria, Jordan and Turkey, and visits the region four or five times a year.

"And on the 30th Volume, He Rested"

Experts are already calling it "the new indispensable biblical research tool," and the first volume hasn't even hit the shelves yet. The Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception, co-edited by Lafayette College professor Eric Ziolkowski, will be a 30-volume publication. It will focus on exploring the Bible and its historical and contemporary influence on nearly every aspect of culture and society. The encyclopedia will be produced over the next ten years, and released at a rate of three volumes per year.

Who Says Nice Guys Finish Last?

The NCAA has named Bucknell University as one of four Division I institutions in the nation to receive the "All-American Sportsmanship School" award, which honors schools that have implemented exceptional sportsmanship programs. In case you think it's the equivalent of "Miss Congeniality" in a beauty pageant, you should know that Bucknell has won the Patriot League's all-sports championship in 13 of the 17 years it has been contested, including 2006-07.