Introducing the Letters and Science Faculty Forum

By Genevieve Shiffrar

October 5, 2000

This fall, the Deans of L & S have introduced the Faculty Forum, a gathering to foster intellectual exchange across disciplines within the College of Letters and Science and to promote collegial relations among faculty who might otherwise have little contact with one another. The Deans hope that the Forum will contribute to a sense of community within the College, and that it will become a vehicle for informal and spirited discussions of a broad range of intellectual challenges.

The Letters and Science Faculty Forum is the brainchild of former Acting Dean of Physical Sciences Mark Richards, who envisioned an informal weekly luncheon of 30-40 faculty representing the breadth of scholarly work in the College. Each week, a Forum member would discuss briefly a fundamental idea or aspect of his or her research, followed by questions and general discussion. Forum members would attend one to two semesters, with new members rotating in to allow eventually for a broad participation among faculty.

When presented with the idea, Letters and Science faculty responded enthusiastically, and the Deans have had to make some difficult choices among the respondents for fall 2000 membership.

The first meetings of the Faculty Forum have lived up to high expectations. Music professor Wendy Allenbrook discussed Mozart at the inaugural meeting. Walter Alvarez from Earth and Planetary Science spoke at the second meeting, describing his theory that an asteroid slamming into Earth precipitated the mass extinction of dinosaurs and other animals 65 million years ago. Anthropologist Pat Kirch discussed his work on Polynesian culture at the third meeting. Integrative Biologist David Wake spoke with sobering clarity at the fourth meeting about the recent disappearance of amphibians from our ecosystems. There are more surprises to come for the members, for they do not know in advance the next week's speakers.

The Faculty Forum has succeeded in its mission, for it has already fostered cross disciplinary collaboration among faculty. Additionally, faculty feel more a part of the liberal arts community at Cal—more a part of the College of Letters and Science—through the process of learning from each other.

If you are a faculty member interested in Faculty Forum membership in the future, email forum@LS.berkeley.edu.

A complete list of current and past Forum members can be found at http://ls.berkeley.edu/fsr/forum/.