Lewis Feldstein lecture: a master speaks on social capital

Tuesday night (May 12) saw an astounding lecture on social capital: Lewis Feldstein, president of the New Hampsire Charitable Foundation and co-author (with Robert Putnam) of Better Together: Restoring the American Community, spoke at Schaible Auditorium on the topic “Better Together: Community Leadership and Social Capital”. The lecture, part of UAF’s Northern Leadership Center Lecture [...]

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Thinking gratitude

At a very happy dinner party on “Thanksgiving Eve”, each of us was invited in turn to name something he or she was grateful for.  It would have been rude of me to hog the floor for the sake of being thorough, so I kept mine fairly brief.  I’m going to expand on it here. [...]

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On the benefits of neighborhoods

Many members of my religious body love to talk about the spiritual uplift they get from nature. (In this context, nature means something like “the outdoors”, places where they do not see the touch of humanity.) Among people for whom care of the earth is a religious calling, such a sentiment is common. But folks [...]

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Youth soccer, social capital, and neighborhoods

Today, I’ll tackle the dark side of one of our most cherished, wholesome institutions: youth soccer. (Is nothing sacred?) Last night (Monday), I attended a panel discussion on “Building Social Capital”, facilitated by Dr. Susan Herman of the Northern Leadership Center. Briefly, social capital is the density of human social connections either within an individual’s [...]

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