Now in Its Second Semester, The Faculty Forum Exceeds All Expectations

By Genevieve Shiffrar

February 9, 2001

A professor studying hyena behavior compares notes with a faculty person researching representations of the hyena in the Middle East. A medical anthropology professor meets an Integrative Biology faculty member studying medicinal plants. A specialist of the Bog People of Northern Europe talks with the director of the Hearst Museum of Anthropology about Egyptian mummies.

Where do such eclectic and interdisciplinary exchanges among faculty take place on campus? The L & S Faculty Forum. The Forum is probably the only program in the University dedicated to providing faculty from broadly different disciplines the opportunity to get to know each other.

Through the Forum, faculty often discover common interests and appreciate the distinct beauty of disciplines far removed from their own. In fact, one aim of the program is to facilitate the development of new interdisciplinary research collaborations between faculty.

Each Monday for 12 weeks, the same invited faculty (approximately 50 participants distributed across the College) gather for a buffet lunch, after which one of the members speaks briefly about his or her research interests. The follow-up discussion is always far-reaching in its interdisciplinarity and invariably has to be cut off to end the meeting.

Steve Miller, a Classics professor, spoke at the first meeting of the Spring 2001 Faculty Forum. Dr. Miller came to Berkeley in 1972 to run the Nemea Project, excavations of Ancient Nemea in the Greek province of Korinthia. He discussed Nemea's athletic games, like those in Olympia. The excavated stadium includes features such as spectator seating, a building functioning as a locker room, and a tunnel connecting the locker room to the stadium.

In the second meeting, Integrative Biology Professor Roy Caldwell gave an overview of his twenty years of research of the behavioral ecology of the mantis shrimp and other marine invertebrates. His presentation and the discussion hit upon such topics as mantis shrimp visual perception (possibly the most sensitive visual system known), the destruction of coral reefs, and the research publication history of an ancient and rare lobe-finned fish known as the Coelacanth.

Presenter Roy Caldwell explains the attack action of a mantis shrimp's raptorial appendage.

Astronomy professor Alex Filippenko examines a raptorial appendage specimen after the presentation.

Enthusiasm for the Faculty Forum has been surprisingly strong. A German professor believes that "...one of the really enticing things about the forum is not just the opportunity to hear great scholars talking about their own stuff ... but also the possibility of hearing them engage impromptu with others of their ilk (but from significantly different disciplines) on subjects of mutual interest." A Molecular and Cell Biology Professor states that "This series of events has easily been one of the most pleasurable things I have been involved with since I have been in Berkeley. It is the first activity that has made me feel like a member of a community of scholars instead of just another department member."

Many members of the inaugural Fall 2000 Forum group found the experience so rewarding that they continue to meet on their own. It is exactly this kind of community building, mixed with a true interdisciplinary spirit, that is the heart of the Faculty Forum, and indeed, the heart of the College of Letters and Science.

If you are an L & S faculty member and are interested in participating in the Fall 2001 Forum, please email forum@LS.berkeley.edu. Lists of current and former members can be found at http://ls.berkeley.edu/fsr/forum.

Photos: Genevieve Shiffrar