Former Vice President Al Gore (right) with Columbia President George Rupp during a campus visit last year.

Former Vice President Al Gore will be based part-time at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism as a visiting professor for the 2001 calendar year, it was announced Jan. 25. Starting in February, Gore will teach a special non-credit seminar called "Covering National Affairs in the Information Age."

"This is a special opportunity for the school," said Tom Goldstein, dean and Henry R. Luce Professor of Journalism. "Al Gore will be an incomparable resource for our students and others at this university. From his unique perspective, students will get to see how government and the press intersect."

Details are being finalized for the seminar, which is expected to meet six to eight times this spring. The seminar is designed for students studying national affairs reporting. Gore is also planning to teach at universities in Tennessee.

Gore will also become a Visiting Scholar at Columbia's new Institute for Child and Family Policy which designs and conducts interdisciplinary research on the most difficult problems facing America's children and families. He will participate in the activities of the Institute focused on family and community development as part of a broad national consortium of research universities.

Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism was founded in 1912 and offers programs leading to a master of science and a Ph.D. in journalism. The School also runs the Knight-Bagehot Fellowship Program in Economics and Business Journalism and the National Arts Journalism Program for working journalists. The School of Journalism administers some of the most prestigious prizes in journalism, including the Pulitzer Prizes, the National Magazine Awards, the Maria Moors Cabot Prizes, the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards in television and radio journalism and the J. Anthony Lukas Prize Project.