I am writing in support of Gonny Nir’s thoughtful and well-founded (if somewhat protracted) columns in The Justice regarding the current state of academic life here at Brandeis.  Like Gonny, I’ve often felt that the best features of campus life involve what she calls “meaningful experiences” that arise naturally between inquisitive students and caring faculty and staff.  I also agree with her that these experiences cannot be forced.  But I also believe, with the help of the Department of Student Affairs, that the essence of these experiences can be made a part of what Gonny refers to as the “infrastructure” of our university.  

How might this be done?  It’s really not so hard.  Faculty members profess a certain expertise in their subjects, but we’re interested in all manner of things that never show up on our syllabi (just as students, oddly enough, have interests beyond their class schedules).  Why not take advantage of this?  What I have in mind is a series of colloquia, fully fun and fully thought-provoking at the same time (in other words, fully like a genuine liberal arts education), in which professors from different departments share their unique perspectives on given topics.   And having shared them, they would then open up a discussion between and among students and faculty about what can be learned from the engagement of one perspective with the other.

I thought about calling these colloquia “Gweithgaredd penwhythnos sydd ddim yn ddiflas,” which is Welsh for “non-boring weekend activity,” but I am not wedded to that.

Anyway, as an example of what I have in mind, consider what might be done with the element Silver.  A Chemistry professor might begin the colloquium by talking about what an “element” is and what makes Silver chemically distinct.  Their presentation might be followed by someone in the liberal arts (me, for example) who would say something about the way Silver would change the world’s economy forever once it was found in great quantities deep within the “Cerro Rico” at Potosi.  Back and forth we could go, sharing insights from chemistry on the one hand and history and economics on the other, groping towards---who knows what?  Something about the arbitrariness of value?  The way electron arrangements consign us to our destinies?  Something else?  I don’t know.  But that of course is the point.  We’d all be thinking of this together, and enjoying ourselves as we do so, seeing where the give and take might lead.

Given the number of programs we have at Brandeis, the permutations that may give rise to such engagements are vast in number, exceeding even the number of possible orders at Starbucks (recently estimated at 300 billion).  Consider a colloquium on Charles Ives’ heartbreakingly beautiful “Concord Sonata” presented by people from the Music and Philosophy Departments, or a session on the strange and altogether crucial planet Jupiter, presented by people from Physics and Classics—or maybe a session on the Battle of Waterloo, put on by a historian on the one hand, and on the other by someone with a particular love either for “Vanity Fair,” or “Les Miserables,” or both.  What would come of that?  I think it would be fun to find out.  

I, for one, would enjoy volunteering my time over the weekends for events like this, and I think other faculty members would feel the same way—especially if this is something students would want as part of their experience at Brandeis.  There would be no hint of Gonny’s “phony bells and whistles” about these colloquia.  Instead, at least at their best, they would be unforced adventures in learning, of the sort that might help Brandeis proclaim once more its uniqueness, and allow it to carry forward the tradition of Marcuse, Fischer—and even Dylan, who really did change the musical world (although contrary to Gonny’s belief, he did it through “Highway 61 Revisited,” not “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan”---perhaps a topic for an American Studies and Physics collaboration)?

---Professor Dan Breen