Briefly Noted

Pitt to Host Valentine’s Day Concert by Daphne Alderson

Cabaret and classical singer Daphne Alderson will perform in Pitt’s Fifth Annual Valentine’s Day Concert, titled “Songs for Dreamers,” at 7 p.m. Feb. 14 in Heinz Memorial Chapel.

Alderson will perform a selection of songs of love and joy for the young and young at heart. She draws her inspiration from the jazz styling of Ella Fitzgerald and the spicy rhythm of the Tango. Accompanying Alderson during the performance will be Tom Roberts at the piano, Jeff Mangone on bass, and some of Pittsburgh’s finest string players.

The concert will feature such songs as Gershwin’s “He Loves and She Loves,” Berlin’s “Isn’t This a Lovely Day,” and Rodgers and Hart’s “A Ship Without a Sail.”

General admission is $20, and tickets for seniors and students are $12. Advance reservations are recommended. For further information on reservations or concert schedules, call 412-624-4157 or visit www.heinzchapel.pitt.edu. —Angelica Duggins

Disability Discrimination Scholar To Lecture in Law School Feb. 15

Ruth Colker, the Heck Faust Memorial Chair in Constitutional Law at Ohio State University’s Michael E. Moritz College of Law, will give a free public lecture Feb. 15 as part of the Pitt School of Law’s Thornburgh Family Lecture Series in Disability Law and Policy. Her talk, titled “Disability and Integration: An Inherent Tension,” is scheduled for 1 p.m. in the Barco Law Building’s Teplitz Memorial Courtroom. A reception will follow the lecture.

A former Pitt professor and one of the leading scholars in the country in the areas of constitutional law and disability discrimination, Colker has taught at the University of Toronto and George Washington and Tulane universities. She also spent four years as a trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where she received two awards for outstanding performance.

Colker is a frequent guest on National Public Radio and is the author of several books, including The Disability Pendulum: The First Decade of the Americans with Disabilities Act (New York University Press, 2005) and Everyday Law for Individuals with Disabilities (Paradigm Publishers, 2006). She has published more than 50 articles in such law journals as the Harvard Law Review, Yale Law Journal, Columbia Law Journal, and Pennsylvania Law Review.

The Thornburgh Family Lecture Series was created by a gift from former Pennsylvania Governor and U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh and his wife, Ginny, vice president and director of the National Organization on Disability, Religion, and Disability Program.

A Pitt trustee, Dick Thornburgh is a 1957 graduate of the University’s law school.

Recipients of the 2003 Henry B. Betts Award from the American Association of People with Disabilities, the Thornburghs donated the $50,000 Betts Award funds to the University to establish The Thornburgh Family Lecture Series in Disability Law and Policy through Pitt’s School of Law and School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences (SHRS). The fund has been supplemented by grants from the Office of the Chancellor, the law school, and SHRS.

This lecture has been approved by the Pennsylvania Continuing Legal Education (CLE) Board for 1.5 hours of CLE credit. For details, visit www.law.pitt.edu/alumni/cle/index.php. For more information on the lecture series, call 412-648-1373. —Audra Sorman