As you continue to shelter in place or venture out carefully, thanks to Covid-19, we on the PBKNCA Board hope you are keeping mentally active, if not as physically active as you might like. Many thanks for being a member of our Northern California Association.

Our Vice-President, Programs. O’Neil Dillon is excited to announce that we are now resuming events in person (for fully vaccinated, masked members and guests), and have just enjoyed the Museum of International Propaganda. Also, Asilomar Chair, Deirdre Frontczak, has announced the return of the Asilomar Conference in Pacific Grove over Presidents’ weekend (see below).

Speaking of Asilomar, we are delighted to announce that Deirdre was able to transfer our down payment for 2021, so the Association isn’t out any money for cancelling last year’s event. Deirdre (dfrontczak@santarosa.edu) would be delighted to hear from you with suggestions for speakers for 2023.

In May, which seems a long time from now, we’ll confer scholarships on worthy graduate students from our association’s campus chapters. The hard work of Second Vice President–Scholarships, Joanne Sandstrom, and her committee (and your monetary contributions) makes this possible. My thanks to all members who have given generously to our scholarship program during the past year and before. Please keep it up! We didn’t hold our Annual Meeting this past May due to the virus, but at this point, we plan to hold our Annual Meeting in person and award scholarships (perhaps with a Zoom connection for those who can’t make it in person), so stay tuned for further information.

We encourage nominations for our Teaching Excellence awards for faculty members at the universities in our Association area that have Phi Beta Kappa chapters. If you were motivated, impressed, or enthralled by a teacher at any of those schools, please nominate them for a Teaching Excellence Award, using the form available at https://www.pbknca.org/teaching. Teaching Excellence Chair Melissa Stevens awaits your input.

Our Young Professionals group of Phi Betes under 40 is now headed by Alex Casendino and just had a very successful event in San Francisco. To be on the mailing list, contact Alex at alexander.casendino@gmail.com. More events are planned.

Wishing you a peaceful autumn and happy holidays, Mary Turner Gilliland, President 2011-22

n fulfillment of its mission to encourage scholarship and research, the Phi Beta Kappa Northern California Association has honored the following outstanding Phi Beta Kappa graduate students with $7,500 scholarship awards to assist them in completing their educational objectives: 

Jerika Barron, UCSF, Biomedical Sciences (Norall award)	Gil Breger, UC Berkeley, Near Eastern Studies	Tal (Tali) Caspi, UC Davis, Ecology	Lewis Esposito, Stanford, Linguistics (Gilliland award)	Iris Holzer, UC Davis, Soils and Biogeochemistry	Jonathan Lear, UC Berkeley, History
Claire Magnani, UC Berkeley, Chemistry (Hendess award)	Julia Melin, Stanford, Sociology	Joseph Passman, UC Berkeley,  History (Hardardt Award)	Ashley Perez, UC San Francisco, Sociology	Kathryn Pribble, UC Berkeley, Slavic Languages and Literature	Nina Venuti, UC Davis, Ecology (Reed award)

Scholarship Committee: Jeff Fenton, Lynne Fovinci, Judith Hardardt, Jean James, Joanne Sandstrom (Chair) 

eenly aware of the great worth of learning and of the extraordinary gifts, diligence, and amplitude of spirit that mark the best in teaching, the Phi Beta Kappa Northern California Association takes pleasure in conferring its 2021 Teaching Excellence Awards upon these distinguished teachers:

Teaching Excellence Committee: Melisa Lasell, Andrea Braga, Melissa Stevens (Chair)

Is your professor worthy of recognition? Each year the Phi Beta Kappa Northern California Association gives awards for teaching excellence. We intend to give five awards for 2021, but we still need more nominations, and the deadline is December 15th!

The professor you nominate will have an excellent chance of receiving an award, so it is worth your time to fill out a nomination form, available here.

We believe that excellence in teaching should be rewarded because there is at least one great teacher behind every great scholar. Please nominate one or more of your favorite professors whose efforts deserve recognition.

Your professor needn't be a Phi Beta Kappa member, but they must teach at one of the following Northern California institutions with PBK chapters:

Mills College, San Francisco State University, Santa Clara University, Stanford University, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz, and the University of the Pacific.

We look forward to hearing about your professor!

Melissa Stevens
Chair, Teaching Excellence Committee

Please see https://www.pbknca.com/teaching/ for more information.

The Phi Beta Kappa Northern California Association requires proof of full vaccination against COVID-19 for attendance at any and all events.  Full vaccination is defined as completion of the two-dose regimen of Pfizer or Moderna vaccines or one dose of Johnson & Johnson vaccine administered two weeks or more in advance of the event.

A face covering is required for entry at events and must be worn at all times. Face masks must completely cover the nose and mouth and have ear loops or similar to hold in place.  Neck gaiters and bandanas are not acceptable. Attendee-Safety

Located about 30 miles south of Sacramento adjacent to the town of Walnut Grove, Locke is the legacy of the efforts made by the Chinese in developing agriculture in California. In 1970 the entire town was nominated to the National Register of Historic Places by the Sacramento County Historical Society.

Established in 1915, Locke is the last remaining rural Chinatown in America. During its heyday from the 1920’s to the 1940’s Locke was an autonomous island of Chinese culture with a permanent population of about 600, including many families, and about 1000 seasonal farm laborers.

At one time Locke had four restaurants, a half dozen markets, dry goods stores, five brothels, a post office, two slaughterhouses, a flour mill, canneries, shipping wharves, an opera, speakeasies during Prohibition, and five gambling houses.

The drive to Locke is along levee roads next to scenic delta sloughs, agricultural activities and through small delta towns. The world of the Delta is a throw-back in time, and is as interesting as the tour itself.  

This is an opportunity to understand an important bit of history of the Chinese experience in California.  

The Grand Island Vineyards is a 10-15-minute drive from Locke. It provides a 6-course wine tasting and also provides a place for a picnic lunch after the tour ends. You may bring your own lunch if you want more than the snacks available to buy at the winery.   

The beautiful Asilomar Conference Grounds was designed in the Arts & Crafts style by architect Julia Morgan and is located near Monterey, California. Last year’s conference reminded us of the pleasures of dialogue in the liberal arts – a conversation that flows from history to literature, from biology to design, from neuroscience to music to foreign affairs. Many members have already registered in anticipation of another great event. We will have a slate of extraordinary speakers representing a broad range of disciplines and pursuits.

More details are posted about this wonderful event online at https://pbknca.com/event-4418637. It is not too early to sign up now! The coupon is on page 8 and online registration is available at https://pbknca.com/event-4418637

Deirdre Frontczak, Asilomar Chair

Friday night – Speaker and title, ​To Be Announced

Saturday morning

This lecture will discuss the current understanding and some recent challenges regarding cosmology, galaxies, and planets. There is persuasive cosmological evidence that most of the density of the universe is invisible dark matter and dark energy, with atomic matter making up only about five percent of cosmic density. But the latest high-precision measurements of the expansion rate of the universe have revealed potential discrepancies that may require new physics.

Saturday afternoon – Jerome Cranston, Dean of Education, University of Regina: ​ Dismantling Systemic Racism in and through Education

In this lecture, Dr. Cranston will address how the current period of racial reckoning calls those involved in educating children and youth – from K-12 through university studies – to confront ways that our education systems support and reify the systemic racism in our social institutions. Using a transdisciplinary approach, Dr. Cranston peels back the overt and covert ways that colonial ideologies, structures, and institutions have created and maintained racial injustice in education and beyond. Through race-conscious approaches, he explores educational inequities as well as solutions that lead to greater justice for those to whom it has been denied. 

  Saturday night – Judy Bicknell (PBK U. Oregon) and Neil Bicknell, Filmmakers: Poetry, Power and the Artist’s Influence in Society

JFK: The Last Speech, the documentary, companion book and website, were created with the conviction that the messages and civic values of President Kennedy and Robert Frost speak to us today.

Those messages and those values can point a way for actions we can take to move us beyond our debilitating polarized politics to a "more hopeful, civilized and peaceful American future."

In honoring Robert Frost on that idyllic fall day in 1963, the President honored the arts and artists and those who speak truth to power. He challenged those who receive a great education to recognize their responsibility to sustain our democratic system, a responsibility that rises above that of others. His words that day remind us of the beauty, insight and expression of universal feelings in Frost's poetry and remind us of the qualities of a leader, who can inspire a nation to do great things and who can "stand up to bullies abroad..."

This presentation and the ensuing film is a call to action to rebuild our civic sphere – infused with "broad sympathy, understanding and compassion." 

Sunday morning – Bruce Cain (PBK Bowdoin), Political Science, Stanford: California’s Extreme Weather Challenge: A Battle on Two Fronts

Extreme weather is battering California in multiple ways. Decades ago, climate scientists predicted that heat, drought, flooding, wildfires and sea level rise would become more extreme, but California is still not well prepared to deal with these problems. Decarbonization and extreme weather adaption are political as well as technical problems. Climate change denial is the obvious challenge at the moment, but NIMBYism, localism, governmental fracture, and the like also play a role. What can we do to be more effective in meeting the climate change challenge? 

Sunday afternoon – Zeke Hausfather, PBK Grinnell, Climate Science, Berkeley / Director of Climate and Energy, The Breakthrough Institute.  The Magnitude of the Climate Challenge: Where we are, where we are headed and what’s needed to meet Paris Agreement goals

A decade ago the world seemed on track for a particularly grim climate future. China was building a new coal plant every three days; global emissions were increasing at a rate of 3% per year and increased by 31% between 2001 and 2010. Scenarios where global carbon emissions tripled by the end of the 21st century with coal use increasing sixfold seemed plausible to many. Researchers argued that “business as usual” would likely lead to a world 4ºC or 5ºC above pre-industrial levels by 2100. Today, the world is a very different place. We are succeeding in making clean energy cheap, with solar power and battery storage costs falling 10-fold since 2009. Over the past two years, the world produced more electricity from clean energy — solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear — than from coal.

Sunday night – Kristin Kusanovich, Theater and Dance, Santa Clara: The Interdisciplinary tUrn: A New Invitational Model for Climate Crisis Awareness & Action in Higher Education

The climate crisis – including environmental racism, ecological collapse, and runaway global warming, with their implications for all living beings – is upon us. So are political upheavals and social injustices of every sort. And the pace of events, their severity, their aggregate power to disrupt and take lives and livelihoods away are breathtaking.

Most people know this, and say they care. But of those, fewer than half are taking decisive action. Many educated people, including those with resources, energy and skills to spare, still do not create the time or space to discuss the climate crisis with those with whom they work, live, teach or lead – let alone get involved in influencing the outcome of our future history.

Monday morning – Jonathan Lear (PBK UMass/Amherst), 2021 recipient of a PBKNCA graduate scholarship award (video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NHkm_WsT24), Ph.D. Candidate in History: Japan, West Germany, and the Global Atomic Age

The Atomic Age typically evokes a certain set of images, events, and ideas: for instance, the mushroom cloud, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and deterrence theory. When the "peaceful uses" of atomic energy are brought into the discussion, we often view the early promises of nuclear power with a healthy dose of skepticism and sometimes simply as cold war propaganda. My talk shifts the focus of the Atomic Age to Japan and West Germany, two countries that shared recent experiences of fascism, total war, and catastrophic defeat. I will discuss how a range of historical actors– among them engineers, journalists, scientists, and managers– used the promise of the peaceful atom to repurpose their personal and professional lives and to conceive their nations anew after decades of social and political crisis. By focusing on how Japanese and West German elites conceptualized their commercial nuclear projects, we might come to a more global understanding of the Atomic Age that goes beyond the usual focus on the United States and the Soviet Union.

What:   1.5-hour docent-led walking-tour

Time:   10:30 AM 

The Oakland Zoo is home to over 850 native and exotic animals.  Established in 1922, it is managed by the non-profit Conservation Society of California.  It is a 100-acre site which has had extensive recent remodels, including the California Trail reached via an aerial gondola with stunning views of the surrounding East Bay.  It is dedicated to the conservation of wild animals locally and globally.

Please print legibly. If you subsequently can’t make an event, others may be waiting. Please call O’Neil Dillon, First Vice President, Programs, cell 510-207-8761, oneilsdillon@gmail.com