FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

"Lessons from 'A Civil Action'" to be discussed at Bates

LEWISTON, Maine -- Charles Hadlock, who has done mathematical modeling and corporate consulting on environmental-related litigation cases, including Love Canal and Three Mile Island, will discuss "Mathematics, the Environment and John Travolta: Lessons from 'A Civil Action'" at 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 4, in Room G52 of Pettengill Hall. The public is invited to attend the Sawyer Lecture in Biology free of charge.

Drawing on the Woburn, Mass., groundwater contamination case popularized in the recent John Travolta film "A Civil Action," based on the award-winning book of the same title by Jonathan Harr, Hadlock will discuss some of the technical issues arising in that case, the central role of mathematical modeling and the challenge of explaining technical issues to judges, juries, legislators and the general public.

"Names like Bhopal, Three Mile Island and Love Canal bring back vivid memories to a generation of Americans, but the stories and lessons of those related cases are already slipping away from the next generations," Hadlock said. "One wonders if we are approaching with equal naivete and awkwardness the multidimensional environmental challenges of today and tomorrow."

Hadlock, dean of the undergraduate college and associate dean of faculty at Bentley College, led an international environmental consulting practice at the firm of Arthur D. Little Inc. He spent a recent sabbatical year on the faculty of MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, where he completed his latest book, "Mathematical Modeling in the Environment." His book "Field Theory and Its Classical Problems" received the Mathematical Association of America Book Award. Hadlock, who has been an assistant professor of mathematics at Amherst and Bowdoin colleges, received the Innovation in Teaching Award from Bentley College in 1997.

Dr. Carl E. Andrews, Bates class of 1940, established the William Sawyer Memorial Biology Lecture Fund to honor William H. Sawyer Jr., Bates class of 1913, who taught biology at Bates from 1916 to 1962.