Associate professor of government Fred Lynch, currently researching a book on the sociological impact of aging Baby Boomers, will host a theme panel discussion on Mobilizing the Baby Boomers: Generational Issues in Politics and Policy Debates at 4:15 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 3 in the main ballroom of the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, D.C. The roundtable will be one of several themed discussions toward "Mobilizing Democracy" at the 2005 American Political Science Association Meeting.
Baby Boomers refer to the 76 million persons born between 1946 and 1962. Lynch's research on this generation will pay special attention to "studying the social bases that may encourage Boomers to become an organized political or social movement as this generational tidal wave confront common problems of retirement, health care, and other aging-related barriers," he explains. "Indeed," he says, "Baby Boomers have already challenged or transformed most of the social institutions through which they have passed, especially the institutions of work and family." Lynch's ongoing research was awarded the George C.S. Benson summer research grant by The Family of Benjamin Z. Gould Center for Humanistic Studies, at Claremont McKenna College.
Expected participants for Lynch's panel include Jeffrey Love, AARP Knowledge Management; James Pinkerton, New America Foundation; William Frey, University of Michigan; Neil Howe, Life Course Associates; and Greg O'Neil, National Academy on an Aging Society.
Panel speakers Frey, Pinkerton, and Howe are past guests of the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum. Frey, a research professor at the University of Michigan's Population Studies Center and a visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution, visited campus in 2004 to discuss Three Americas: How Migration is Transforming America. Pinkerton, who worked in the White House under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush Senior, is a FOX News Analyst and Newsday columnist. Howe, writer, historian, and economist, is the author of several books on budget policies, aging, attitudes toward economic growth, and social progress.