Internationally renowned primatologist Jane Goodall to speak to first-year students during 2006 Milton Lecture

Internationally renowned primatologist Jane Goodall to speak to first-year students during 2006 Milton LectureSeptember 14, 2006Sara Millersemortim@syr.edu

Jane Goodall, founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and a United Nations Messenger of Peace, will deliver the Laura J. Hanhausen Milton First Year Lecture to first-year students in Syracuse University’s College of Arts and Sciences on Sept. 18. The lecture, which is not open to the public, will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Goldstein Auditorium of the Hildegarde and J. Myer Schine Student Center.

The Milton Freshman Lecture of the First Year Forum program brings a speaker of international stature to campus each fall to address the new entering class of The College of Arts and Sciences. The program was established by a gift from Jack ’51 and Laura Milton ’51 in 1999. In 2000, the Miltons established the Laura Hanhausen Milton Freshman Lecture Endowment, enabling the college to invite world-renowned scholars and writers.

In her 2006 Milton Lecture, Goodall will highlight her research from the Gombe Stream region of East Africa, where she conducted groundbreaking studies of wild chimpanzees. She will also discuss the Jane Goodall Institute’s global youth program, Roots & Shoots, and the institute’s efforts to promote conservation and sustainable livelihoods, as well as health care and education in the Kigoma region of Tanzania.

While in Syracuse, Goodall will also take part in the special public event “Roots of Peacemaking: Indigenous Values, Global Crisis” on Sept. 19 at the Salt Museum in Onondaga Lake Park. There she will meet with members of the local Onondaga Nation and take part in a ceremonial tree planting. Goodall and local Native American leaders and educators will offer remarks. Speakers include Goodall; Oren Lyons ’58, H’93, Onondaga Faithkeeper and distinguished professor at the University at Buffalo; Tom Porter, spiritual leader of the Kanatsiohareke Mohawk Community; Michael Johnson, United Nations representative to Pathways to Peace; Wendy Gonyea, Onondaga Faithkeeper; Robin Kimmerer ’75, director of the Center for Native People and the Environment at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF); Andy Mager of the Syracuse Peace Council; and Denise Waterman G’97 of the Onondaga Nation School. Traditional food and art by members of the Haudenosaunee Nations (Six Nations) will be for sale, and music and dancing will accompany the event. “Roots of Peacemaking” will begin at 9 a.m. and is free and open to the public.

Those wishing to attend the Salt Museum event may park at Onondaga Lake Park or take one of the shuttle buses that will leave from the Schine Student Center and The Warehouse. The first bus departs from the Schine Student Center at 8:30 a.m. on Sept. 19, and buses will leave every half hour. For more information, visit http://rootsofpeacemaking.syr.edu. This event is supported by the Chancellor’s Office, The College of Arts and Sciences, ESF, the Syracuse Center of Excellence in Environmental and Energy Systems, Neighbors of the Onondaga Nation/Syracuse Peace Council and the Onondaga Nation.

In the afternoon of Sept. 19, Goodall will meet at 11:30 a.m. for lunch with two groups of local schoolchildren representing the Roots & Shoots organizations at their schools — fourth-grade students from Syracuse’s Van Duyn Elementary School and students from Chestnut Hill Elementary in Liverpool. The Roots & Shoots program, which gives young people the tools they need to make a difference in their communities on behalf of people, animals and the environment, is now active from pre-school through college in more than 90 countries worldwide.

At 1 p.m., Goodall returns to campus, where she’ll meet with college-aged Roots & Shoots organizations from East Coast schools. This gathering takes place in Room 500 in the Hall of Languages, and SU students are welcome to join the group.

Goodall is globally recognized for her pioneering research into chimpanzee behavior, which has transformed scientific perceptions of the relationship between humans and animals. In 1960, she began a venture into the Gombe Stream region of East Africa to study chimpanzees — a highly unorthodox activity for a woman at that time. In her first year, she observed the chimps’ ability to make and use tools, forcing science to rethink the definition that separated man from other animals. Goodall defied scientific convention by giving the chimpanzees names instead of numbers, and insisted on the validity of her observations that the chimps had distinct personalities, minds and emotions. Her research continues today through the Gombe Stream Research Center, which — under the stewardship of Tanzanian field staff and other researchers — is one of the longest uninterrupted wildlife studies in existence.

Founded in 1977, the Jane Goodall Institute continues Goodall’s pioneering research of chimpanzee behavior — research which transformed scientific perceptions of the relationship between humans and animals. Today, the institute is a global leader in the effort to protect chimpanzees and their habitats. It also is widely recognized for establishing innovative community-centered conservation and development programs in Africa, and the Roots & Shoots education program, which has groups in more than 95 countries.

Goodall’s scores of honors include the Medal of Tanzania, the National Geographic Society’s Hubbard Medal, Japan’s prestigious Kyoto Prize, the Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research, the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Science and the Gandhi/King Award for Nonviolence. In April 2002, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Goodall to serve as a U.N. “Messenger of Peace.” In 2004, at a ceremony at Buckingham Palace, Prince Charles invested Goodall a Dame of the British Empire, the female equivalent of knighthood, and in 2006 she received France’s highest honor, the Legion of Honor.

Her list of publications is extensive, including two overviews of her work at Gombe, “In the Shadow of Man” (Houghton Mifflin, revised 2000) and “Through a Window” (Houghton Mifflin, 2000), as well as two autobiographies in letters, the best-selling autobiography “Reason for Hope” (Warner Books, 2000) and many children’s books. “The Chimpanzees of Gombe: Patterns of Behavior,” (Harvard University Press, 1986) is recognized as the definitive work on chimpanzees and is the culmination of Goodall’s scientific career.