Sept. 26, 2006 — Howard Gardner, one of the world's foremost authorities on the topics of intelligence, creativity, leadership, professional responsibility and the arts, will be the keynote speaker for the McIntire School of Commerce’s 2006 fall forum, “Leadership and Positive Societal Change,” beginning at 8 a.m. on Friday, Sept. 29, in Old Cabell Hall Auditorium on the Grounds of the University of Virginia.

The annual forum, which is open to the public at no charge, is co-sponsored by the McIntire Center for Financial Innovation, Center for Growth Enterprises, Center for the Management of Information Technology and UVA LEAD.

In addition to Gardner, the forum will include a panel discussion featuring Julie Bargmann, associate professor of landscape architecture at U.Va., and Dr. W. Michael Scheld, the Bayer-Gerald L. Mandell Professor of Internal Medicine at the University.

The forum is the latest in a series of symposia initiated by the McIntire School in 2000 to celebrate and ponder the new millennium.

This year’s event will be a catalyst in the launch of UVA LEAD, a three-year, interdisciplinary leadership program for U.Va. students who aspire not only to grow intellectually in their chosen domains, but also to enhance their abilities to effectively lead within their respective organizations and fields.

Gardner is the John H. and Elisabeth A. Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He also holds positions as adjunct professor of psychology at Harvard, adjunct professor of neurology at the Boston University School of Medicine and senior director of Harvard Project Zero.

Among numerous honors, Gardner received a MacArthur Prize Fellowship in 1981. In 1990, he was the first American to receive the University of Louisville’s Grawemeyer Award in Education, and in 2000 he received a fellowship from the John S. Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Gardner is best known in educational circles for his theory of multiple intelligences, a critique of the notion that there exists but a single human intelligence that can be assessed by standard psychometric instruments. During the past two decades, he and colleagues at Project Zero have been working on the design of performance-based assessments; education for understanding; the use of multiple intelligences to achieve more personalized curriculum, instruction and assessment; and the nature of interdisciplinary efforts in education.

Gardner will present his keynote address at 8:30 a.m with the panel discussion to follow at 9:15 a.m.

Bargmann is internationally recognized as an innovative designer in building regenerative landscapes and with interdisciplinary design education. Her ongoing design research Project D.I.R.T. (Design Investigations Reclaiming Terrain) continues to excavate the creative potential of disturbed landscapes. From closed quarries to abandoned coal mines, fallow factories and urban rail yards, Bargmann joins teams of architects, artists, engineers, historians, and scientists to imagine the next evolution of these working landscapes.

Scheld is past president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America and co-director of the training program at the Academic Alliance for AIDS Care and Prevention in Africa. His research interests include molecular mechanisms of bacterial pathogenesis, sepsis and septic shock, adenosine receptors, inflammation, innate immunity, anthrax, antimicrobial resistance, appropriate use of antimicrobial agents, HIV/AIDS and vaccines.

For more information on the fall forum or the McIntire School of Commerce, see the Forum Web site or contact Jim Travisano at 434-924-7005.