09/25/2019
Welcome back, everyone! This is post is a bit late in coming, but the MAIS wants to thanks Dr. Larry Knopp for his wonderful commitment to the MAIS program since his arrival to UWT in 2009. And here's some thoughts from Larry himself; he retired on July 1 and while we're happy to see him find new adventures, we'll miss him tremendously.
"Every year in June graduate students, alumni, and faculty from programs in Liberal Studies (in UWT’s case, Interdisciplinary Studies) get together at a conference known as the West Coast Liberal Studies Symposium. As its name implies, the conference is regional. Its location rotates among a small group of colleges and universities in western North America, including Dominican University of California, Mount St. Mary’s University (Los Angeles), Reed College (Portland), San Diego State University, Simon Fraser University (British Columbia), St. Johns’ College (Santa Fe), Stanford University, and UWT. I have been fortunate to represent UWT administratively at the Symposium four times, including in 2017 when UWT hosted the event. This year’s Symposium took place June 7-9 at St. John’s College in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where I was again fortunate to be able to represent UWT (along with graduate student presenter Kris Workman – see photos below!).
The Symposium is always incredibly stimulating. It is a forum exclusively for graduate students (and a few alumni) to present their ideas and accomplishments, most of which are works in progress. Presentations are truly interdisciplinary and amazingly diverse. This year’s panels, for example, had titles including “Technology: Nature, Philosophy”, “Logic, Knowledge, and Being”, “Memory and Memoir”, “The Modern Individual”, “Of Music”, “Women in History”, “Science and Technology”, “Buddhist Views”, “Art and Aesthetics”, “Experience and Structure”, “The Life of Education”, “Politics and Society”, and “Fictions and Modernity”. Our own Kris Workman’s presentation, “Balancing Economic and Social Values to Implement a Comprehensive Data Policy”, was a particular hit and generated considerable discussion beyond the panel in which it was presented. Be sure to congratulate Kris and hit him up for a copy of his paper!
For myself, attending the 2019 Symposium was a delightful capper to my decade-long career at UWT (and my 30-year career in academia – I have retired effective July 1!). It was a warm and uncharacteristically intimate reminder of what I value so deeply about a life of the mind, particularly action-oriented interdisciplinary inquiry of the sort embodied by the MAIS program. Over the years I have seen what higher education looks like from almost every angle, and it has always been interdisciplinary inquiry that I have found most exciting and fulfilling. The MAIS program was founded by wonderfully expansive, progressive thinkers who shared this excitement, including Professors Sam Parker, Michael Forman, Amos Nascimento and Professors Emeritus Rob Crawford, Mike Kalton, Claudia Gorbman, and David Morris. They built a program that remains the pinnacle, not just symbolically but intellectually and ethically, of UWT’s core academic unit, the School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences. The program’s graduates and current students are the best evidence of this. They are making their marks in the world in hugely important ways, from positions as diverse as grassroots activists to public servants, primary and secondary school teachers, university professors, health care workers, artists, academic administrators and advisors (including our own Karin Dalesky!), and everything in between.
I am grateful to the MAIS program’s recent director, Dr. Riki Thompson, for giving me the opportunity to represent the program, SIAS, and UWT one more time at this year’s Symposium. It was a lovely and most appropriate way to end my career. I am also grateful to Karin – as should everyone associated with the program be – for the support she provides the program every day. The MAIS simply could not work without her. And most of all I am grateful to the many students with whom I have worked (particularly but by no means only MAIS students in the Capstone class) for their tenacity, hard work, novel insights, and mentorship. Yes, mentorship! I have learned at least as much from you as you have from me. Learning is ultimately a collaborative enterprise, and experiences like the Capstone course and this year’s Symposium in Santa Fe reminded me poignantly of that fact.
Thank you all and CARRY ON!! 😃"
