Campus Briefs

AVNER GREIF AWARDED MACARTHUR PRIZE  Stanford economist Avner Greif (pictured at right) is among 29 MacArthur Fellows announced by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in June. The fellowship program was established in 1981 to foster lasting improvements in the human condition by awarding talented individuals with grants of $220,000 to $375,000 over five years. Greif, 42, is an Israeli citizen who joined the Stanford faculty as an assistant professor in 1989 after receiving a doctorate in economics from Northwestern University. His work has led to "greater understanding of the institutional evolution and the conditions that lead to social conflict or cooperation," the foundation said in its statement. His use of game theory illustrates the importance of studying a society's economics in the context of its social and political beliefs and institutions. He was awarded $265,000. The grant offers Greif among other things a chance to learn more languages, and to travel to archives in the Mediterranean region for his research on late medieval Italian states, he said.

EVOLUTION IN TEACHING  A group of prominent scientists and educators headed by Donald Kennedy, the Bing Professor of Environmental Science, has produced a new guidebook, Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science, to help teachers reestablish evolution as a key part of science education in elementary and secondary schools. The theory of evolution has fallen by the wayside in many public school classrooms, said Kennedy, partly because of political pressure from some religious groups and because science textbooks have become overstuffed "compendia of facts." The guide provides eight sample projects for teaching evolution and sample responses teachers can give to questions about the status of evolutionary theory among scientists.

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