Class Notes

Can creativity be cultivated? What does it take to conquer a disease? How does digital technology affect what it means to be human?

Since last fall, members of the University community, from Chicago to Shanghai, have been taking part in conversations that explore such questions. Collectively titled “The Rochester Effect,” the series brings together faculty, alumni, parents, and others to share their perspectives on some of the world’s most challenging issues.

The culminating event will come this October in Rochester, as part of Meliora Weekend.

Here are some highlights from the series.

Valuing Academic Inquiry in a Democracy

WGBH Studios, Boston

November 2018

Panelists

Carmala Garzione, Helen and Fred H. Gowen Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences

Peter Lennie, Jay Last Distinguished University Professor

Brian Mitchell ’81 (PhD), president of Academic Innovators and former president of Bucknell University

David Williams, William G. Allyn Professor of Medical Optics and dean for research in Arts, Sciences & Engineering

“Universities are creating the kind of productive citizens and the engaged workforce that, on a global scale, societies across the world need.”—Mitchell

“Really, our effort is on training people to think, to ask questions, and to be able to solve problems they haven’t seen in the classroom before.”—Garzione

“Academic freedom doesn’t mean you are free to do anything you want or to do nothing . . . it means you are free from capricious interference with your work—that’s the key protection of a decent university.”—Lennie

“We have to engender in our students that risk taking is good. That’s where the big payoffs are, that’s where the big wins are.”—Williams

Cultivating Creativity and Inspiring Innovation

Museum of Broadcast Communications, Chicago

November 2018

Panelists

Alan Pierson ’06E (DMA), artistic director for Alarm Will Sound

Jennifer Grotz, poet and professor of English

Phillip Ying ’91E, ’92E (MM), associate professor of viola and chamber music at the Eastman School of Music and a founding member of the Ying Quartet

Jonathan Binstock, Mary W. and Donald R. Clark Director of the Memorial Art Gallery

“One of the great things I’ve loved about being a musician is that it’s an activity that engages every part of what it means to be a human being, and there aren’t many activities that do that beyond the arts.”—Ying

“This is why we call these things the humanities. It’s the history of trying to figure out what it means to be human and how to express it. It’s our greatest wealth, and if we don’t learn it and share it, we lose it and it’s gone.”—Grotz

“We live in a time that I think we desperately need to cultivate more empathy, more of the kind of radical empathy that lets someone try to really understand what it’s like to be leading a very different life from the one that they’re living.”—Pierson

“I’m thinking of the University’s motto Meliora—ever better. The concept of process, of becoming. I mean, that embodies this idea of creativity in a sense.”—Binstock

Conquering Disease

WHYY Studios, Philadelphia

February 2019

Panelists

John Foxe, Kilian J. and Caroline Schmitt Chair in Neuroscience and director of the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience

Barry M. Goldstein ’82M (MD/PhD), ’85M (Res), vice president of Diabetes and Endocrinology Clinical Development Services at Covance Inc.

Catherine K. Kuo, associate professor of biomedical engineering

Kerry O’Banion, professor of neuroscience and neurology

“People who are trained in multiple disciplines cross boundaries, they are building teams, and they are breaking old ways of thinking about how to solve problems.”—Foxe

“None of this happens in a single person’s mind or a single laboratory; it often is the culmination of lots of efforts that lead to breakthroughs.”—O’Banion

“I’m a materials science engineer by training, but I’m a professor in biomedical engineering and orthopaedics because I ask questions about biology and I approach them from an engineering perspective.”—Kuo

“[C]onquering disease to cure patients’ lives, alleviate pain and suffering, and to prolong life . . . it’s really what keeps you going, [regardless of] whatever stage you happen to be working in, in the complicated matrix [of the medical field].”—Goldstein

Being Human in the Digital Age

NPR Headquarters, Washington, DC

February 2019

Panelists

Randall Curren, professor and chair of philosophy

Ehsan Hoque, Asaro Biggar Family Fellow in Data Science and interim director of the Goergen Institute for Data Science

Madeline K. Sofia ’16M (PhD), associate producer on NPR’s Science Desk

David Williams, William G. Allyn Professor of Medical Optics and dean for research in Arts, Sciences & Engineering

“We’re, at this very moment, looking at a reign of technological developments that are unprecedented in human history . . . what does this mean for being human?”—Williams

“In the same way that we are designing studies, we should develop technologies with diverse participants, diverse mind-sets, different people in the room. For instance, when developing artificial intelligence, we need sociologists, philosophers, technologists, engineers, and lawyers—all of these people need to come together if this will be effective.”—Sofia

“What can artificial intelligence do to make us more human? And the next question you can ask is, what does it mean to be more human? What do you want to do? Be a good storyteller perhaps, show empathy, connect with people? Technology can help you do all of that.”—Hoque

“The technologies we are creating and the rising levels of expertise that go with them go hand in hand, and with that we are creating an incredibly complex world . . . we have to have some vision of how we can all live well together.”—Curren

For More Rochester Effect

The Rochester Effect series travels to San Francisco on May 29 and to Denver on May 30 before concluding in Rochester during Meliora Weekend. For details, visit the website Everbetter.rochester.edu/events.