FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (01/03)
Contact:  Lynn Stewart, Centenary News Service, 318-869-5120
 
 
Author-Editor Mark Fischetti to Present Public Attaway Lectures at Centenary College Feb. 4, 5 and 6

SHREVEPORT, LA -- Mark Fischetti, writer and editor for numerous national publications, will visit Centenary College during the week of Feb. 3 as the college’s spring semester Attaway Fellow in Civic Culture.

The Attaway professorships attract to campus public figures who make distinctive contributions to the intellectual life of students as well as the members of the community. The visiting scholars present themselves not as academics who occasionally have public roles, but as full-time public intellectuals and gifted communicators whose foremost interest is civic culture.

Fischetti, who writes and edits primarily for science, technology and business publications, will present three public lectures during his week at Centenary:
· “Denying the Obvious: How We Cultivate Drug-Resistant Diseases,” 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 4, Kilpatrick Auditorium, Smith Building
· “Why the Web Remains a Grassroots Medium,” 2 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 5, Carlile Auditorium (Room 114), Mickle Hall
· “Can Detroit Build a 40-mpg SUV?” 11:10 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 6, Kilpatrick Auditorium, Smith Building.

Fischetti is contributing editor for Scientific American and has written for Smithsonian, The New York Times, Science, Omni, MIT’s Technology Review, Forbes and Sports Illustrated.

He is the editor or coauthor of the books Weaving the Web (with Tim Berners-Lee for HarperColllins, 1999), A User’s Guide to the Brain (by John Ratey, Random House, 2001), The Chemistry of Conscious States (by Allan Hobson, Little Brown, 1994) and the forthcoming The New Killer Diseases (with Elinor Levy, Random House, 2003).

The periodicals for which he has served as editor include Family Business, IEEE Spectrum, Harvard Business Review and Issues in Science and Technology.

His article “Drowning New Orleans,” from the October 2001 issue of Scientific American, is included in the anthology Centenary publishes for its first-year students, Negotiating Uncertainty.

Centenary’s Attaway professorships are named in honor of the late Douglas and Marion Attaway. They combine the advantages of guest speakers and internship programs as they provide brief residencies as the fellows interact personally with students and the community. Like internships, the Attaway professors play a mentoring role that encourages students to engage in similar intellectual endeavors. As guest speakers, the Attaway professors bring to campus perspectives that are often underrepresented in the academy.

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