On Sunday, October 4, from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m., Westminster Presbyterian Church will be hosting a Dessert & Dialogue program on mental health. The guest speaker will be Dr. Thomas Insel, the director of the National Institute of Mental Health. All Alexandria community members are welcome, and parents of school-age children are especially invited to attend.
Dr. Insel’s presentation in the church’s Fellowship Hall will focus on “The State of Knowledge about Mental Illness and NIMH’s Current Research.” Prior to his 2002 appointment to the NIMH, he was professor of psychiatry at Emory University. He has published four books and more than 280 articles on neurobiology. Read Dr. Insel’s blog or watch his TED talk.
The October 4 event will kick-off a series of Sunday morning programs featuring NIMH experts (all at 9:45 a.m. in the Haverkamp Room):
October 11: New Hope for Depression with Dr. Sarah H. Lisanby, Director of the NIMH Division of Translational Research
October 18: A Dialogue on Anxiety with Dr. Daniel Pine, a specialist in pediatric mental disorders
October 25: Suicide Prevention with Dr. Jane Pearson, chair of the NIMH Suicide Research Consortium
**************
On Wednesday, October 21, from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. at the Minnie Howard campus of T.C. Williams High School, the Alexandria PTA Council will host a school board candidate debate. All 13 candidates will participate together in the first portion in the auditorium, and during the second portion there will be break-out sessions for the candidates in each of the three districts.
The candidates are:
District A: Bill Campbell, Harold “Hal” Cardwell, and Karen Graf
District B: Cindy Anderson, Kelly Carmichael Booz, Mimi Goff, Margaret Lorber and Veronica Nolan
District C: Ronnie Campbell, Daria Dillard, Ramee Gentry, Pat Hennig and Chris Lewis
**************
On Monday, October 26, at 6:45 p.m. (dinner catered by Bittersweet) or 7:15 p.m. (program only), at the Hermitage (5000 Fairbanks Avenue), the monthly Agenda: Alexandria program will focus on ACPS capacity issues and redistricting. Featured speakers are ACPS superintendent Dr. Alvin Crawley, former ACPS board member Art Peabody and current Arlington school board member Abby Raphael. Agenda: Alexandria is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that hosts eight dinner meetings each year on wide-ranging topics of interest to Alexandria residents. Make dinner and program reservations here.
**************
Did you know that…
T.C. William’s Margaret Feldman, a college adviser with the Scholarship Fund of Alexandria, was interviewed for a segment on NPR’s All Things Considered about changes announced this week in the Free Application for Federal Student Aid or FAFSA form beginning with the class of 2017. (That’s right, fellow parents of seniors, not for you.) In short, the form will be available sooner—in October 2016 instead of January 2017—and students will report income tax information for their family for an earlier tax year. For example, on the 2017–18 FAFSA, students will report their parents’ 2015 income information, rather than their 2016 income information.
Categories: Uncategorized
Port City Notebook 
You must be logged in to post a comment.