October 7, 2004

Some of the nation’s leading authorities on contemporary family life will converge on campus for the 2004 Tenneco Community Symposium, “Families in Crisis,”
on Friday, Oct. 8.

The symposium will run from noon to 4 p.m. at Farish Hall’s Kiva Room. The free event is open to the public. At the symposium, legal and health professionals, social service providers, educators, academics and community members will examine problems facing today’s diverse families. Topics to be addressed include domestic violence, work/family conflicts, divorce and poverty.

Sponsors are the University of Houston Law Center, the history department and the American Cultures Program in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences.

Speakers include:

• Constance Ahrons, author of “We’re Still Family” and “The Good Divorce,” professor emerita of sociology and former director of the Marriage and Family Therapy Program at the University of Southern California
• Rhea V. Almeida, founder of the Institute for Family Services
• Stephanie Coontz, best-selling author of “The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap” and “The Way We Really Are: Coming to Terms with America’s Changing Families”
• Paula England, professor of sociology at Stanford University
• Frank Furstenberg Jr., Zellerbach Family Professor of Sociology, University of Pennsylvania
• Arlene Skolnick, author of “Family in Transition” and “Embattled Paradise: The American Family in an Age of Uncertainty”
• Steven Wisensale, professor of public policy at the University of Connecticut and author of “Family Leave Policy”

The symposium is being held in conjunction with the board meeting of the Council for Contemporary Families, a national nonprofit organization of leading academics, noted family researchers and mental health and social work practitioners dedicated to enhancing the national conversation about contemporary families and their needs.

Francine Parker
FParker@central.uh.edu