URI Honors Colloquium Featuring Mayor Taveras Canceled Tonight

David Byrd and Diane Kern, coordinators of the 2013 University of Rhode Island Honors Colloquium, have canceled tonight’s honors colloquium with Providence Mayor Angel Taveras and the WRIU radio show, The Beauty Salon.

The interview with Taveres, scheduled for tonight, Dec. 3, was to be broadcast live on WRIU and live streamed at uri.edu, as part of “Great Public Schools: Everyone’s Right? Everyone’s Responsibility?”

Taveras would have discussed the $5 million Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Mayors Challenge prize awarded to Providence in support of Taveras’ initiative to improve the vocabularies of preschool-age children by measuring and rapidly increasing the number of words spoken in their households.

“Due to this very short notice, Professor Byrd and I have decided it is in the best interest of the Honors Colloquium and the University of Rhode Island to cancel this event,” said Associate Professor of Education Kern. “We want to thank the members of The Beauty Salon for their invaluable expertise and countless efforts preparing for what would have certainly been a highly successful event."

The final colloquium of the series featuring Pasi Sahlberg will be held Tuesday, Dec. 10 at 7:30 p.m. at Edwards Hall on URI's Kingston campus. Sahlberg is a world-renowned education scholar who helped turn Finland’s public school system into one of the best in the world.