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Author to Speak About Using Peer Pressure for Positive Change

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Tina Rosenberg will speak Thursday, Feb. 2, at the University of Central Florida about how peer pressure can be used for positive change.

Rosenberg, author of “Join the Club: How Peer Pressure Can Transform the World,” will talk at 3 p.m. in the Garden Key Room of the Student Union. The event, organized by the UCF Global Perspectives Office, is part of the 2011-2012 themes of “People Power, Politics and Global Change” and “Covering Crises from the Frontlines.” It is free and open to the public.

In her book, Rosenberg argues that peer pressure has the potential to help enact social change, improve education and oust dictators.

In 1987, she received a MacArthur Fellowship, which she used to move to South America. Her experiences there helped her write her first book, “Children of Cain: Violence and the Violent in Latin America.” Later, she won the Pulitzer Prize for a book about the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, “The Haunted Land: Facing Europe’s Ghosts After Communism.” 

She currently writes “Fixes,” an online column on solutions to social problems for The New York Times.

In addition to the Global Perspectives Office, sponsors and partners include Lawrence J. Chastang and the Chastang Foundation, the Sibille H. Pritchard Global Peace Fellowship program, the UCF Global Peace and Security Studies Program, the UCF Nicholson School of Communication, UCF LIFE, the UCF Book Festival 2012 in association with the Morgridge International Reading Center, the UCF Political Science Department, the UCF International Services Center and the Global Connections Foundation.