Prologue II

The Rev. Henry Sloane Coffin, ’97, who chaired the blue-ribbon committee that in 1952 answered William F. Buckley Jr. with the categorical conclusion that “religious life at Yale is deeper and richer than it has been in many years,” could recall more distant student days when Yale’s religious life was deeper and richer still. Coffin was a renowned preacher, was the president of Union Theological Seminary in New York City (he had once been a leading candidate for the Yale presidency), and had done as much as anyone to shepherd mainline Protestantism from evangelicalism to theological modernism....

Commissions and Panels

The chapter analyzes the over-sized role of one visible component of the Third UN. Prominent individuals—many of whom made their government and international civil servant careers as members of the First and the Second UNs—have come to constitute essential and frequent contributors to the advance of knowledge and norms. The case studies concern peace operations (the Brahimi report of 2001 and HIPPO of 2015); the protection of human beings in war zones (the ICISS report of 2001); and for sustainable development (the Brundtland report of 1987 and the ongoing work by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC). Less successful or even counterproductive group efforts also figure in the discussion, but the main examples seek to demonstrate how and when such blue-ribbon groups make a difference.

The Monuments Debate

This chapter recalls the approval of the resolution to create the Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials, and Public Spaces by the Charlottesville City Council on May 28, 2016. It explains that the resolution will provide the council with options for telling the full story of Charlottesville's history of race and for changing the City's narrative through public spaces. It also identifies nine persons who were appointed to the Blue Ribbon Commission, which had as its principal focus the statues Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. The chapter highlights protestors that favor the removal of the statues, arguing that modern society should not idolize an evil history. It analyzes the Blue Ribbon Commissions compromise to not remove the Lee and Jackson statues on the condition that their meaning is transformed, and their history is retold.

Future directions for implementation science at the National Cancer Institute: Implementation Science Centers in Cancer Control

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) Cancer Moonshot initiative seeks to accelerate cancer research for the USA. One of the scientific priorities identified by the Moonshot’s Blue Ribbon Panel (BRP) of scientific experts was the implementation of evidence-based approaches. In September 2019, the NCI launched the Implementation Science Centers in Cancer Control (ISC3 or “Centers”) initiative to advance this Moonshot priority. The vision of the ISC3 is to promote the development of research centers to build capacity and research in high-priority areas of cancer control implementation science (e.g., scale-up and spread, sustainability and adaptation, and precision implementation), build implementation laboratories within community and clinical settings, improve the state of measurement and methods, and improve the adoption, implementation, and sustainment of evidence-based cancer control interventions. This paper highlights the research agenda, vision, and strategic direction for these Centers and encourages transdisciplinary scientists to learn more about opportunities to collaborate with these Centers.