A panel of experts will lead a symposium titled "Community, Communication and the Responsibility of the Individual" Friday, June 9, from 4 to 5:15 p.m. in Goldwin Smith Hall D at Cornell University, during the university's annual alumni reunion weekend. The symposium is free and open to the public.

A 13-year-old kills his teacher; teen-agers shoot at each other at the National Zoo, catching mothers with little children in the crossfire; a 34-year-old attorney from a wealthy Pittsburgh suburb goes on a rampage — his victims include the elderly Jewish woman next door, three Asians working at a local restaurant and a black man at a karate school. These are just some of the more recent tragedies that have shaken the United States, compelling many to seek more and better means to effectively address the root causes of these eruptions of hatred and violence.

The "Community, Communication and the Responsibility of the Individual" symposium, organizers say, is an effort to present proactive approaches to the forms of alienation and isolation that are breeding grounds for rage and destructive behavior.

The symposium's panel comprises individuals who have devoted most of their creative energy to writing and/or teaching about some of our culture's most significant stories and situations. They are:

• David Feldshuh, Cornell professor and artistic director in the Department of Theatre, Film and Dance, Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow and the Pulitzer Prize-nominated playwright of Miss Evers' Boys.
• Kenneth McClane (Cornell M.F.A. '76), the W.E.B. DuBois Professor of Literature at Cornell and a highly praised poet and essayist, whose writing — Walls, Take Five, A Tree Beyond Telling -- and teaching continues to be an inspiration and witness to Cornell students and the broader community.
• Minfong Ho (Cornell MFA '80), winner of the Caldecott Award, one of the highest honors for writers of children's literature, for Hush (1997), and a Council on Interracial Books for Children first prize winner for Sing the Dawn.
• Barry Strauss, Cornell professor of history and director of the university's Peace Studies Program. His expertise ranges from antiquity to the American Civil War, to the significance of citizen service, and he recently served as commentator on the PBS series "The Greeks."

The moderator will be Robert Harris, Cornell vice provost for diversity and faculty development, associate professor of Africana studies and one of America's foremost historians on the African-American experience.

The co-sponsors of the symposium are the Cornell Council for the Arts; Cornell Africana Studies and Research Center; James Norris Oliphant Fellowship; the Cornell Class of 2000; The Bookery; and the Theater of Ideas.

A brief reception will follow the symposium.