Denison University welcomes Frances Kuo, a psychologist whose work focuses on how we encounter our home environments, from noon until 1:30 p.m. on Thursday (Sept. 22) in the Burton Morgan Lecture Hall. The lecture, titled "Children, Nature and Neighborhoods: Lessons from Inner City Chicago and Everywhere, U.S.A.," is free and open to the public. This lecture is part of a series, "Built by Rasp and Bicycle," a year-long consideration of how we make our homes, and how they make us. The series is a college-wide collaboration and is sponsored by the McGregor Fund, the John W. Alford Center for Service Learning, the Laura C. Harris Fund, the Lilly Endowment, the Goodspeed Lecture Fund, the Office of the President, the Ronnenburg Fund and the Offices of Student Affairs and First-Year Programs.

Kuo's work has examined how students become spatially situated in the strangeness of a new campus home and on the benefits of nature -- trees in particular -- in fostering neighborliness and healthy individual growth in urban communities, and ties into this year's theme of "Home."

Her recent work argues that "urban forests" are important in promoting physical and mental well-being and in improving relationships and positive patterns of individual development among other children and adults in densely populated urban areas. She has studied the connections between the two.

Kuo is currently an associate professor psychology at the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign. She also directs, with Bill Sullivan, the Human Environment Research Lab, where the effects of the physical environment on human behavior and functioning are documented. She also tests ways to communicate natural resource/environmental issues to citizens more effectively. A member of the Environmental Design Research Association, she won its Achievement (early career) Award for research she did on Chicago public housing.

Other speakers scheduled this fall for the First-year Program theme of "Home" are Alex Kotlowitz and David Shipler.

Calendar Listing:

CALENDAR LISTING: Denison University, Granville -- The First-Year Program welcomes Frances Kuo for a convocation from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Thursday (Sept. 22) in the Burton Morgan Lecture Hall (150 Ridge Road). Free and open to the public. For more information contact (740) 587-6668.

About Denison:

Denison University, founded in 1831, is an independent, residential liberal arts institution located in Granville, Ohio. A highly selective college enrolling 2,100 full-time undergraduate students from all 50 states and dozens of foreign countries, Denison is a place where innovative faculty and motivated students collaborate in rigorous scholarship, civic engagement and the cultivation of independent thinking.

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