As part of its outreach, the Decade of Behavior sponsors activities related to its themes of safety, education, health, prosperity, and democracy. This year, the Decade joined with the Smithsonian Associates to inaugurate a series of public lectures. The first of these lectures was held before a packed audience on October 10, 2001, in Washington, DC, as Harvard political scientist Robert D. Putnam highlighted the democracy theme in a talk on civic engagement. Putnam, whose talk title, "Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community," is also the title of his recent book, has fascinated academic and public readers with his suggestion that how we spend our leisure time has important implications for how we act together as a society. In the lecture, Putnam supported his main point that participation in civic activities (e.g., Rotary clubs, volunteer organizations, local politics, sports teams, and even neighborhood picnics) is associated with increased "social capital" which, in turn, predicts a number of important life outcomes, such as education, health, well-being, and longevity. He documented that such civic participation has declined precipitously over the last several decades and explored a variety of reasons for why this might be so. He also discussed the longer-term repercussions of this decline, including a decrease in societal trust, and ended by discussing how the recent terrorist attacks have elicited a temporary increase in interpersonal and civic connectedness.

Putnam, president of the American Political Science Association, remains cautiously optimistic that American society can regain its store of social capital by inventing new mechanisms for civic engagement that combine values and fun. He calls on individuals to engender connectedness, not only by institutional reform, but also by reconnecting with our neighbors and communities. "Figuring out how to renew our stock of social capital is a task for a nation and a decade, not a single scholar or even a single group" he admonished—and set a challenge to "America’s parents, educators, and above all… young adults" to "invent powerful and enticing ways of increasing civic engagement among their younger brothers and sisters."

Putnam is currently the Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University, where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in American politics, international relations, comparative politics, and public policy. He is the founder of "The Saguaro Seminar: Civic Engagement in America," a program that has brought together leading practitioners and thinkers for a multi-year discussion to develop broad-scale, actionable ideas to fortify our nation's civic connectedness. Before joining the Harvard faculty in 1979, Putnam taught at the University of Michigan and served on the staff of the National Security Council.

A former dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, Putnam also sits on the Advisory Council on Environmentally Sustainable Development at the World Bank. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

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