News Sources: Middle East Peace Conference

Arab countries are warming — slightly — to a U.S.-pushed Mideast peace conference in Annapolis amid a flurry of fierce last-minute lobbying. But heavyweight Saudi Arabia still wouldn't say Wednesday if it plans to send a high-level delegation and Syria also remained on the fence. 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):

David Lesch - Professor of History, Trinity University - Lesch is an expert on Middle East and American foreign policy. He is the author of 1979: The Year that Shaped the Modern Middle East and, recently, The New Lion of Damascus, about Syrian president Bashar al-Asad, to whom Lesch has had unprecedented access. He served as news analyst and consultant to the National Security Agency during the Persian Gulf War, and is a consultant to the U.S. State Department. College:

Fawaz Gerges - Professor of Middle East Studies, Sarah Lawrence College - A MacArthur Fellow, Gerges studies Arab politics, militant Islamic movements, the Arab-Israeli peace process and America's relations with the Arab world. Gerges is the author of America and Political Islam: Clash of Cultures or Clash of Interests? and The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global. He has contributed to major foreign affairs publications and newspapers.

Virginia Tilley - Associate Professor of Political Science, Hobart and William Smith Colleges - Tilley specializes in the politics of economic development and ethnic conflict, especially in developing countries. She has researched indigenous politics in Arab-Israeli conflict and settlement policy. Her book The One-State Solution A Breakthrough for Peace in the Israeli-Palestinian Deadlock is forthcoming.

Following a Different Drummer?

Tim Stedman came to Knox College from Los Angeles for what he calls a traditional education. In doing so, he walked away from fat paychecks and hobnobbing with celebrities as a vice president/creative director with the world's largest record studio. Even so, he spent this past summer working or Lyle Lovett.

Surviving Black Friday and Beyond

On four-year college campuses, few courses focus on how to manage your money. Wellesley College economics professor Ann Witte and a former student, Saundra Gulley, offer help through a class called "Personal Finance," now in its second year at the college.

News Sources: Reading vs. TV Survey

Americans aged 15 to 24 on average spend two hours a day watching TV and only seven minutes on leisure reading, reducing their chances for high-paying jobs and community service, according to a report by the National Endowment for the Arts. Reporters looking for experts to interview on these topics 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):

Claudia E. Cornett - Professor of Education, Wittenberg University - Cornett has delivered 300 speeches and authored books and articles on learning styles, bibliotherapy, motivation, literature-based reading instruction and whole language. She also wrote and taught the children's instructional television program, teacher in-service as well as a teacher in-service video series on reading.

Ronald Lembo - Associate Professor of Sociology, Amherst College - Lembo's newest book is Thinking Through Television: Viewing Practices and the Social Limits to Power.Teaches and writes about the sociology of mass media and mass culture, news and entertainment systems, media corporations.

Thomas Cloer - Professor of Education, Furman University - Cloer is a reading specialist who has written extensively on phonics and other basic reading techniques. He has long argued against standardization of reading materials for elementary school children. He was voted the South Carolina Governor's Professor of the Year in 1988.

Voter ID Law: A New "Poll Tax?"

A new Indiana law requires voters who can't show identification at the polls to use a provisional ballot and then travel to the the courthouse within the next 10 days to either show a valid ID or swear that they are either indigent or have a religious objection to being photographed. Swarthmore College political science professor Richard Valelly recently joined a group of leading scholars of race, class, and politics in America in signing an amicus brief submitted to the Supreme Court this week challenging the Indiana law, contending it amounts to a poll tax and a "democratic emergency."

The Holidays as Family Minefields

Parents: Our child is coming home from college to visit; we'll have a perfect holiday. Children: Finally, a chance to do some laundry and catch up with old friends. Sound like a Thanksgiving recipe for disaster? Gettysburg College counseling director Kathy Bradley says such "clashes in expectations" are at the root of many disagreements between college students and their families during holiday breaks.