New Harvard Children's Initiative to Expand Interfaculty Effort

Provost Harvey Fineberg has announced the formation of a new

interfaculty effort, the Harvard Children's Initiative (HCI). HCI

supplants and expands the interfaculty initiative formerly known as the Harvard Project on Schooling and Children by combining its ongoing work with that of two other programs, the Harvard Center for Children's Health at the School of Public Health and Children's Studies at Harvard. Under HCI, Schooling and Children's emphasis on program evaluation, innovative schools, and community linkages will continue, integrated more fully with the activities of the Center for Children's Health and with Children's Studies at Harvard, an interdisciplinary effort developed by Schooling and Children in 1996.

"The Harvard Children's Initiative will enhance many existing efforts at Harvard on behalf of children, bringing greater coordination and coherence along with new intellectual collaborations and opportunities," said Fineberg. "It will enable the University to expand and integrate education and research related to children's development and well-being."

The initiative is led by a faculty steering committee, chaired by Mary Jo Bane, Thorton Bradshaw Professor of Public Policy and Management at the Kennedy School of Government. In addition to Bane, the Faculty Steering Committee includes Kurt Fischer, professor at the Graduate School of Education; Jerome Kagan, Daniel and Amy Starch Professor of Psychology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences; Marie McCormick, Sumner and Esther Feldberg Professor of Maternal and Child Health at the School of Public Health and professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School; and Martha Minow, professor at Harvard Law School.

"This outstanding group of faculty represents the disciplines that need to work together to address the complex challenges facing children today," Bane explained. "Our overall mission is to focus the entire spectrum of Harvard's resources on an urgent issue -- children's ability to grow to healthy, productive adulthood."

According to Bane, HCI is especially interested in developing new courses and educational programs for Harvard students, from undergraduates to postdoctoral fellows. Several such courses and programs are already under way. Sponsored by the Harvard Project on Schooling and Children, Kagan and Minow (along with GSE Professor of Anthropology Robert LeVine) inaugurated a new Core course for undergraduates, Children and Their Social Worlds, in 1997. The course, also known as Social Analysis 56, considers the problems facing contemporary children from the viewpoints of anthropology, history, sociology, psychology, and law, and will be taught for the third time in spring 1999. Other current training activities include postdoctoral fellowships in evaluating programs for children, beginning the second year this fall with 10 fellows, and a series of new interdisciplinary courses on children's issues offered across the University with support from Children's Studies at Harvard.

HCI will also promote new interdisciplinary research, building on existing programs such as Hit or Miss, a sponsored research project that examines the influence of school, social service, and community interventions on behalf of children's learning and well-being, and the interdisciplinary research seminars devoted to children's identities, resilience, and public discourse sponsored by Children's Studies at Harvard. The goal of all current and future efforts is to bring together faculty and students from the relevant disciplines and fields to produce new, flexible, and responsive ways of thinking about and responding to children's issues.

As an example of the new insights HCI hopes to achieve, Faculty Steering Committee member Professor McCormick points to an interdisciplinary seminar on children and health she will convene this year, along with Stuart Hauser, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and president of Judge Baker Children's Center. "We don't have a theory or a clear understanding of the role of physical health and the experience of illness on child development," McCormick said. "The seminar will try to identify the relevant dimensions of ill health influencing child development, the influence of the experience of illness on interactions in the family, and the intersection of health issues with other dimensions of development, such as cognition."

McCormick also serves as director of the Harvard Center for Children's Health. Based at the School of Public Health, the Center aims to shape public policies, lead the discovery of new practices for prevention and intervention, and facilitate implementation of effective preventive and health promotion programs for children. As such, the Center places particular emphasis on dissemination, sponsoring public events, media forums, and a newsletter, as well as sponsoring an annual Award for Excellence in Children's Health.

HCI will build on the Center's strength in this area by developing a comprehensive Website and other dissemination activities. And, to introduce the Children's Initiative to Harvard and the larger community, the group plans a conference on the many determinants of children's academic achievement, psychological development, and health, to be held Feb. 5 and 6, 1999, at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. "We're organizing an exciting lineup of speakers who will discuss the genetic, biological, family, and community influences on children's development," Kagan said. "We'll examine these influences with respect to three different childhood outcomes: academic performance; signs of psychopathology, especially asocial behaviors and anxiety; and finally, asthma, which is becoming an increasingly frequent chronic illness."

The Harvard Children's Initiative is one of the five Interfaculty Initiatives under the auspices of the Office of the Provost.

For more information, contact Administrative Director Mary Askew at 496-4938.