Academe n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy n.: A modern school where football is taught.

And from a military school which taught me that to fit into society you can't just do anything you damn well please because it will suit you. And that it's much better to be with the winners than it is with the losers.

The conception that instead of this contemporary society is at or near a turning point is very prominent in the views of a school of social scientists who though they are still comparatively few are getting more and more of a hearing.

The public school has become the established church of secular society.

When I got out of acting school I was lucky to have gotten any job at all. A lot of people hiring African American actresses - it was right after 'Roots ' and for society not me it was great. Nice richly dark-skinned people was the fashion and I was not.

When you look at where the real problems are among minorities in our society particularly blacks it's at the bottom. It's the people who are in school systems that don't educate neighborhoods where there is a lot of crime drugs the whole bit.

I want to help middle-school girls stay interested in math and be good at it and see it as friendly and accessible and not this scary thing. Everyone else in society tells them it's not for them. It's for nerdy white guys with pocket protectors.

Since my retirement I've spent a lot of time trying to help the School of Social Work at the University of North Carolina. A society like this just can't afford an uneducated underclass of citizens.

I had a little insight into life that most kids probably didn't have. My mother was a schoolteacher and my father was a social worker. Through his eyes I saw the underside of society.

In junior high school I was an object of pure ridicule for my dress withdrawal and asocial manner. Dozens of times I saw individuals laugh and smile more in ten to fifteen minutes than I did in all my life up to then.