Here we are again, in Autumn 2022. Who would have thought, when COVID-19 reared its ugly head, that we’d still need to be cautious three years later? In my case, I have only left San Mateo/Santa Clara Counties a handful of times. Thank goodness for ZOOM meetings! 

In February 2023, we’ll be holding our Asilomar gathering in person again, but precautions will be in place to keep every attendee safe. Please see the Asilomar section of this newsletter to sign up, or check the PBKNCA.com website. You can also contact Asilomar Chair Deirdre Frontczak (dfrontczat@santarosa.edu) with specific questions. 

Our Vice-President for Programs, O’Neil Dillon (oneilsdillon@gmail.com) and his committee members (Judy Hardardt, Rev. James Richardson, Jean James, and Young Professionals Joy Wang and Whitney Roeder) are planning events for the upcoming months. Be sure to check the PBKNCA.com for information on these “learning experiences” and just plain social gatherings. If you have a particular program in mind that you’d like to present, please contact one of the committee members. You are welcome to volunteer for any of our committees! 

Teaching Excellence Chair Mel Stevens (melstevens@berkely.edu) always can use suggestions for awardees (https://pbknca.com/Nomination-Form,) 

In the New Year, we’ll be looking for Audit Committee members; if numbers are your “thing,” contact Nominating Committee Chair Judy Hardardt (hardardtj@gmail.com) or me (Mltg@aol.com) for more information. It’s a one-morning in-person gathering, with data provided before the meeting.  

Wishing you a peaceful autumn and happy holidays, Mary Turner Gilliland President 2011-2023  

The $10, 000 Scholarship Awards for 2022 were presented to:

Feyaad Allie, Stanford University, Political Science

Daniel Friedman, UC Berkeley, History

Linda Kinstler, UC Berkeley, Rhetoric (Hardardt Award)

 Alan Kong, UC San Francisco Medical Doctorate (studying glaucoma), (Hendess Award)

Rebecca Nelson, UC Davis, Ecology

Ryan Page, UC Santa Cruz, Film & Digital Media

Elizabeth Postema, UC Davis, Animal Behavior

Maria-Fatima Santos, UC Berkeley, Sociology (Gilliland Award)

Hope Schwartz, UC San Francisco. Medicine M.D., (Reed Award)

Vannessa Velez, Stanford University, History, (Norall)

Sarah Wilker, Stanford University, Classics

Madeline Wyse, UC Berkeley, Middle Eastern Languages & Cultures 

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

The Teaching Excellence Awards for 2022, given to teachers nominated by their students, consisting of a Certificate and a $1000 honorarium, were presented to:

Michael Dylan Foster, Ph.D., Dept. of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Prof. and Chair, UC Davis

Laura D. Gutiérrez, Ph.D., Dept. of History, Assistant Professor, University of the Pacific 

Claire Waters, Ph.D., Dept. of English, Affiliated Faculty - Program in Classics, Dept. of French and Italian, Professor and Chair, UC Davis (Hasenkamp Award) 

Clancy Wilmott, Ph.D., Dept. of Geography and Berkeley Center for New Media, Assistant Professor, UC Berkeley.

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

We are still accepting nominations for this prestigious award for 2023. Please nominate a professor you consider outstanding, someone you found inspiring and admirable, or who taught an especially memorable course. Making such a nomination is a meaningful way of expressing gratitude to that person. pbknca.com/Nomination-Form

Currently, the Phi Beta Kappa Northern California Association requires proof of full vaccination and boosters against COVID-19 for attendance at any and all events.  This may change as the Covid situation changes. Watch the website https://pbknca.com and your email. Full vaccination is defined as completion of the two-dose regimen of Pfizer or Moderna vaccines or one dose of Johnson & Johnson vaccine, including the new bi-valent booster, administered two weeks or more in advance of the event. A well-fitting N95, KF94 or KN95 mask for all indoor activities (except while eating) is also required. Cloth masks, bandanas, or neck gaiters are not acceptable. Face masks must completely cover the nose and mouth.  A well-fitted mask has no gaps between the face and mask, such as above the nose or at the sides.   https://pbknca.com/Attendee-Safety

Note: The price of the events is for current NCA members; elapsed or non-members will pay a surcharge. Full event information, and means of credit card payment are available on our website https://pbknca.com/Events/.  If you want to register for an event but don’t have Internet access, please contact O’Neil, cell 510-207-8761.

If you won’t be able to make an event, contact O’Neil Dillon at oneilsdillon@gmail.com ASAP, or if it is the day of the event call him at 510-207-8761, as there may be others on the waiting list who will then be able to take your place.

No-shows do NOT receive a ref­­­und!

“A faithful study of liberal arts humanizes character, and allows it not to be cruel.”  -- Ovid

If you have questions on this year’s program, please contact  dfrontczak@scu.edu. For registration or logistics matters, please contact Barry Haskell at bghaskell@comcast.net. Registration is $125, which goes mainly to scholarships. Cost will be similar to last year, about $550 per person, double occupancy, and includes all nine meals and parking. All registered participants will receive forms to reserve their Asilomar accommodations, including meals; please check your email. (Remember, to be part of the PBKNCA package, do not reserve directly with the facility.)  Make reservations at PBKNCA.COM or via the form on page eight.

Please join us once again for the annual Asilomar Conference, where we gather to learn, engage in discussions, and to listen to one another in new ways.  A preview of the 2023 event. More info is at PBKNCA.COM:

Deirdre Frontczak, Asilomar Chair

A preview of the 2023 event: 

Friday night – Kalyn Simon, MBA candidate at Santa Clara University: “California’s Water Reality”

California’s landscape, like a majority of places in the world is shifting drastically. Climate change is forcing us to face a future that is projected to be much hotter and drier. California is home to some of the most beautiful and prosperous land which produces a majority of the fruit, nuts, and vegetables consumed in the United States. However, the harsh reality is that this produce as well as economic prosperity can only be sustained through access to water. 

Water supply in a future of the changing climate is concerning, but rather than focusing on climate change, we should be focusing on climate action. Rather than focusing on water scarcity, we should be focusing on building coalitions around water abundance through innovation. This presentation will highlight the intersection of climate, agriculture, water and innovation. We will take a deep dive into an often-controversial topic in California: desalination and the implications of tapping into the ocean as a new source of water to support the state and the world. 

Kalyn Simon is an MBA candidate at Santa Clara University with a concentration in Food and Agriculture Entrepreneurship. Born and raised in the Bay Area, Kalyn received her BA and MA in International Studies at the University of San Francisco while playing Division 1 basketball. She currently is the Director of Corporate Engagement at Natural Ocean Well Co. and the Board Chair at Garden to Table Silicon Valley, a nonprofit farm in San Jose, California. 

Saturday morning – Kerry Driscoll, Ph.D., Associate Editor of the Mark Twain Papers and Project, U.C. Berkeley: “Mr. Clemens and the Saturday Morning Club of Hartford.” 

This presentation tells the little-known story of Mark Twain’s involvement with a group of young local women between the ages of 16 and 20 established in 1876 to “Promote Culture and Social Intercourse.” He assisted in the club’s founding and eventually became—as one member fondly recalled—its “patron saint.” He addressed the group on at least fifteen occasions (significantly, always in the role of “Mr. Clemens” rather than his nom de plume), and persuaded other literary friends to do the same. The writer’s devotion to the Club is most tangibly expressed in the exquisite pins he commissioned from Tiffany & Company in 1880 and presented as gifts to its members. I will discuss Clemens’s role as confidant and mentor to these young women and explore the innovative methods he devised for cultivating their self-expression—offering a fascinating glimpse of the more serious side of our nation’s most celebrated humorist.

Saturday afternoon – Nico Orlandi, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy, U.C. Santa Cruz. “Concepts and Conceptual Engineering: The Concept of a Woman” 

Everyone has an idea of what a woman is. But what is occurring in our heads when we think of a woman -- or a man, or a white man, or any other social concept? Philosophers and psychologists hold ideas as concepts; in this standard view, having the concept or idea of a woman consists of having a general description of what "being a woman" really means.   

This talk explores a view that many of our ideas are simple labels in thought. Our labels act as a sort of headline, an umbrella under which a variety of information about that idea is catalogued  -- for example, the notion that women are adult human females, or that they play a particular role in human reproduction. I suggest that the ideas we associate with the label do not, in fact, constitute that thing;  i.e., that it is not a conceptual truth that “women” are adult human females.  This insight has direct implications for current public debates on trans inclusion – or on other womanly roles -- since the concept of “woman” does not imply a certain reproductive role by nature. This position also allows us to make sense of “conceptual engineering” – an idea we will explore in this talk.   

Nico Orlandi is a philosopher of mind and cognitive science, whose work draws on research in cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and computer science. A central theme is understanding what kind of capacity perception is, and what kind of relationship it affords with the environment.  Their* current projects concern predictive coding models of perception; and the significance of fMRI research for understanding cognition. They are also affiliated with the Feminist Studies department at UCSC.  A first-generation student, Dr. Orlandi completed undergraduate studies in Florence, a doctorate at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill ,and has taught at both Rice University and Stanford.  

(*Note:  Orlandi's pronouns are "they / them." It was not a syntactical error.)

Saturday night – Tom Greene, Ph.D. Astrophysics, NASA Ames Laboratory: 

“Mysteries of the Webb:”  

 The James Webb Space Telescope is the most complex and powerful astronomical space observatory ever built. It launched on Christmas Day in 2021 and has recently been commissioned in its final orbit in the Sun – Earth system. The large 6.5-m diameter JWST primary mirror and its infrared instruments will allow it to see some of the very first luminous objects that formed in the Universe shortly after the Big Bang. Other major science themes of JWST encompass studying the assembly of galaxies, the birth of stars and planetary systems, and planetary systems and the origins of life. JWST will be the premier astrophysics space observatory for NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), and scientists from all over the world will use it for 10-20 years or more. It employs several unique technologies, and the mission was in development for over 20 years. In this talk I will illustrate the mission's science goals and highlight some aspects of its design, technologies, and initial science results. 

Sunday morning – R. Jay Wallace, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy, U.C. Berkeley, and PBK Visiting Scholar, 2022

 “Why Is Everyone So Angry?” 

My topic is the dominance of anger in our political culture and discourse, a phenomenon that I think Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals sheds some light on. Nietzsche thought that large parts of aristocratic societies were consumed with “resentment,” a hostile attitude on the part of the dispossessed toward those who are structurally privileged. This negative emotional orientation eventually gives rise to a new scheme of moral values, which are adopted precisely because they enable the masses to make sense of their prior hostility and animus. So you have an original attitude of antagonism, and then a specific set of moral views become prevalent because of the way they render this hostile orientation intelligible to those who are subject to it. 

Something similar may be occurring in contemporary social processes. These are characterized by a tendency to forming negative group identities, whereby we come to understand who we are by defining ourselves in opposition to other groups. This leaves us with a hostile orientation toward the Other that doesn't really make sense, morally or intellectually. Under these circumstances, we tend to accept narratives of grievance, which attribute to The Other moral infractions that justify and render intelligible our opposition to them, and thereby satisfy an emotional need. But the process of accepting such narratives turns our antagonism into chronic anger, which is characteristically an attitude of emotional opposition to moral wrongs.

Sunday afternoon – Forest Rohwer, Ph.D., Microbial ecologist and Professor of Biology at San Diego State University.    PBK Visiting Scholar, 2022

 “Coral Reefs and Piggybacking Viruses” 

Coral reefs have dominated the tropical near-shore marine environment for hundreds of millions of years, so their rapid decline in recent times is distressing. The main coral stressors are overfishing and warm water events associated with climate change. I will talk about how these stressors change virus-microbe-coral symbioses and cause coral disease and reef decline. Then then I will discuss tools to remediate both the overfishing and climate change problems with the goal of restoring coral reefs.

Forest Rohwer is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He led the development of viromics, which involves isolating and sequencing the RNA/DNA from all of the viruses in a sample. From these data, it is possible to determine what types of viruses are present and what functions they are encoding. Dr. Rohwer has published more than 200 peer-reviewed articles, has won numerous national and international awards, and is listed as one of the World's Most Influential Scientific Minds. He has also published two books: Coral Reefs in the Microbial Seas” and “Life in Our Phage World”.

Sunday night – Claire Waters, Ph.D., Professor of English at U.C. Davis.

*Mothers of Invention”. 

This talk will explore the apocryphal medieval narratives that feature mothers who undertake travel that helps to establish the Christian church in various ways; We will frame the project as a whole and then discuss specific narratives, for example, concerning the finding ("invention") of the cross by St. Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine. 

Truhlsen-Marmor Museum of the Eye

March 18, 2023, 10:00 AM @ 645 Beach St., San Francisco (Fisherman’s Wharf). Parking On-street, and right next door at the Hyde St. Parking Garage. Fee $20 ($10 goes to scholarships)

To register, we prefer you pay online via the black "REGISTER" button. But you may mail the coupon and a check by snail mail.  Vaccination, booster and mask required.  Go to https://pbknca.com/event-5038265

Private, docent-led tour of the Truhlsen-Marmor Museum of the Eye® March 18th @10AM.

Look through the pupil of an enormous eye, explore interactive displays and try on a virtual reality headset to see how new technology can impact medicine. Through high-tech exhibits and a renowned collection of ophthalmic artifacts, you’ll discover surprising facts about how your vision works and about the field of medicine devoted to protecting it.  

Through innovative exhibits, school tours, and free resource materials, the museum promotes eye health on a broad scale.

Visitors of all ages will enjoy the interactive displays and:

  Learn how VR is changing ophthalmology 

  Dive deeply into the historical collection

  See the evolution of eye care through the ages

  Learn about the latest innovations saving sight today

  Develop an interest in the study of medicine and ophthalmology    

The museum will be closed to the public during our tour.

Date:  Saturday March 18 @ 10 AM.

Address: 645 Beach St., San Francisco (Fisherman’s Wharf)

Parking, On street, and right next door at the Hyde St. Parking Garage

Directions by Car, Bus, Bike and Foot here

Cost: $20, PBKNCA members. $30, non-members. 

($10 from either goes to Scholarships)

Duration; 45-60 minutes

Minimum:  7, Maximum: 30

Website: https://www.aao.org/museum-of-the-eye

There is an ongoing virtual book club open to interested members.

Contact Program VP O'Neil Dillon at oneilsdillon@gmail.com