Newsmakers

Education professor Suárez-Orozco appointed visiting professor

Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, professor of education at the Graduate School of Education, has been appointed Directeur d'etudes associe (visiting professor) at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris for 1997. He will give four lectures, two on cultural psychology and two on the anthropology of immigration. These lectures are part of a series of special seminars at the Ecole on the status of psychology.

Two faculty write book on effects of air pollution

Richard Wilson, Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics, and John Spengler, professor of environmental health at the School of Public Health, have edited a new book titled Particles in our Air: Concentrations and Health Effects. Distributed by the Harvard University Press, it contains nine chapters written by experts at the School of Public Health and the Medical School on subjects such as the distribution of pollutant particles, their acute and chronic effects, and policy implications.

Award presented to Kelly of Law School's immigration program

At a multicultural celebration at the United Parish Church in Brookline last month, Law School Immigration and Refugee program supervisor Nancy Kelly received the first Constance A. Hammond award from the Refugee Immigration Ministry (RIM) for "exceptional service to detained refugees, immigrants, and asylum seekers." RIM, founded 10 years ago to minister to refugees and other immigrants detained by the local office of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, receives support from different churches and religious groups in the Boston area. Kelly was one of the first lawyers to work with RIM at the inception of the project, securing the release of refugees, some of whom had been detained from up to two years, and who celebrated their new lives at the award ceremony.

Kelly's and RIM's maverick, tireless, and creative work resulted in a change of policy by the local INS office not to detain those with credible claims to refugee status. Many of the first refugees to be released from detention came to honor Kelly and express appreciation for their years of freedom. The award was given in the name of one of the first women Episcopal ministers in the United States, well known in the Boston area for her charismatic warmth and determination.