12@12

A VPGE-Sponsored Series of Interdisciplinary Lunch Discussions Among Graduate Students and Faculty

Objectives

• Promote intellectual engagement of graduate students across disciplines
• Learn how other disciplines approach a problem and thereby increase creative problem-solving abilities
• Learn to communicate with people outside one’s discipline
• Develop networks among students
• Energize students and thereby actually increase productivity on thesis project
• Increase student-faculty interaction
• Expand horizons and learn about topics not within current field

Mechanics

Groups: 12 graduate students from diverse academic disciplines with one faculty facilitator.  Groups engineered to be a mix of departments and years.  The faculty facilitator is the same individual for the entire series of five lunches.

Time: 12-1:15p.m., once per month on a given weekday (participants will be asked for their availability on the application form).  Meetings will be held January or Febraury through April or May 2013, approximately monthly.

Place: seminar room in faculty member’s department.

Application Process: Handled by VPGE with students assigned to groups based on the day they are available.  Group assignments will be random since we don’t want people to segregate based on interests which the faculty member might be seen to represent (e.g., a science faculty member might attract science PhD students).

Application Deadline: Friday, January 8, 2013 APPLY NOW

Format  and Possible Topics:

• during first meeting, the group will determine how they want to operate, including identifying four topics (one for each month) that are of global importance, complex and very much “in the news” today.
• examples MIGHT include:election financing, extinction of languages, climate change, global economic crisis, Guantanamo, human genotyping, environmental release of genetically modified organisms, California budget process, international copyright infringement, AIDS in Africa, gender identity, legalizing marijuana, alternative energy sources, Afghanistan history, species loss, etc., etc.
• participants divide into academically diverse trios, each of which selects one of the four topics that they will lead the discussion on
• each month, a week before the meeting, that month’s trio sends out a brief, lay reading on the topic (e.g., a link to a New York Times article)
• at the lunch, the trio presents 15 minutes of background on the topic
• they then present a specific problem for the group to discuss, with the faculty member facilitating
• the final 5 minutes are spent reaching a consensus around a specific recommendation for concrete action or a specific question that should be prioritized for further research (e.g., assuming they were responsible for developing policy in this area in the White House)

Food: Lunch provided.