http://www.drew.edu/library/special-collectionsDrew University Archives

Compiled by the Drew University Archives Staff
Updated July 2005; Also available in PDF

THE AQUINAS FACULTY SEMINAR 1970-2005

"I think it was at Drew that I first heard the word 'interdisciplinary'- about seven years ago. Educational procedures seem to me to be genuinely interdisciplinary only if they involve not merely a coming together or confrontation of different departments, but also their interpenetrating one another. I have felt the impulse towards this interpenetration as something in the Drew atmosphere.”

---Owen Barfield, Aquinas Visiting Professor, 1971-72; remarks at Commencement 1972.

The Aquinas Program, of which the Aquinas Faculty Seminar was the heart, was launched in the fall of 1970. The brain child of several creative Drew faculty minds under the leadership of the late Dean of the Graduate School , Bard Thompson, its realization was made possible by a substantial grant from the Aquinas Fund, of which former University President Robert F. Oxnam (now deceased) was a trustee.

Among the names which constantly reoccur in the descriptions of the planning and inauguration of the early years of the program are: Robert Chapman, David Graybeal, Phil Jensen, James O'Kane, John Ollom, and of course, Dean Thompson and Shirley Sugerman, who has been coordinator for the program since its inception. However, the germinal idea for the program's first year was encapsulated in memos from John von der Heide. Two memos written by Professor von der Heide early in 1969 proposed that a year be given to study and psychology and laid out the lineaments of what was to be.

In each of the first three years, 1970-73, the Program was built around an Aquinas Visiting Professor brought to the campus for the specific purpose of directing the program. Each visiting professor was charged with conducting a seminar open to appropriate students from each of the three schools of the University, organizing and directing an interdisciplinary seminar for faculty on the year's theme, and offering appropriate public lectures.

In 1970-71, Dr. David Bakan, Professor of Psychology at York University, Ontario, Canada, and President of the History of Psychology division of the American Psychological Association, served as the Aquinas Visiting Professor. In line with the schematism for the program, Dr. Bakan offered a student seminar, gave public lectures, and led the Faculty Seminar, all on the theme “Psychology and History.” Some twenty faculty representing a variety of disciplines constituted the Faculty Seminar, each offering a relevant paper for review and discussion during the course of the year.

Subsequently, the seminar papers were put into publishable form, edited by Shirley Sugerman, and published in 1978 under the title, Continuities and Discontinuities: Essays in Psychohistory.

In 1971-72, continued interest and substantial support from the Aquinas Fund enabled the University to secure Owen Barfield of England as Aquinas Visiting professor. Professor Barfield was a person of broad interests and competencies with publications in the fields of Philosophy and Science, Language, History, and Literary Criticism. With a prize-winning book on Coleridge just off the press, Professor Barfield offered an exciting advanced student seminar on that subject. Again the heart of the Visiting Professor's task was the direction of the Faculty Seminar, which by now had grown to some 40 faculty participants and had launched out on a new theme: Permanence and Change. As expected, professor Barfield's leadership was both competent and challenging. An honorary D.Litt. degree for Professor Barfield at Commencement completed the year.

Dr. Charles Mullett, then just recently retired as Professor of History after 47 years of teaching at the University of Missouri , assumed the Aquinas Visiting Professorship in 1972-73. Again the Aquinas Fund provided substantial financial support for the Program. An intellectual historian of note, Professor Mullett offered a 2 semester student seminar on British Intellectual History. He also teamed with Dr. John Bicknell, Professor of English (now emeritus) in an interdisciplinary graduate seminar entitled “The 1870's”---a pilot offering in anticipation of the opening of a new doctoral program in 19 th Century Studies. In a report to the Aquinas Fund, Dean Thompson noted that Dr. Mullett made “an invaluable contribution” to the planning for the 19 th Century program. With all of the above, Mullett nevertheless bent his main energies toward the Faculty Seminar which continued to draw some forty faculty, representing at least sixteen different disciplines. The Seminar continued with the theme begun in the previous year: Permanence and Change.

1973-74 saw a change in the structure of the Aquinas Program. In place of a single visiting professor, a group of distinguished scholars were brought to campus at appropriate dates throughout the year. Each visitor offered a public lecture and guided the Faculty Seminar on a topic relevant to the year's overall theme: Changing Patterns of Human Behavior. Among the prominent Visiting Scholars were: William I. Thompson (Humanities, York University), Otto Klineberg (Social Psychology, The Sorbonne), Peter Homan (Religion and Psychology, University of Chicago), David Bakan (Psychology, York University), Phillip Rieff (Sociology, University of Pennsylvania), Stanley Hopper (Religion, Syracuse University), Leo Marx (English, Amherst College), and Louis Feuer (Sociology, University of Toronto). In addition, John Ollom (Physics), Calvin Skaggs (English), Charles Courtney (Philosophy of Religion), Shirley Sugerman (Psychology and Religion), and Will Herberg (Theology) from the Drew faculties assumed leadership roles. Again the Aquinas Fund underwrote the major expenses of the program.

Although Program support from the Aquinas Fund was no longer available after the 1973-74 year, the faculty seminar continued under local leadership and with University support and was designated as The Aquinas Seminar. As Dean Thompson wrote in one of his last reports to the Aquinas Fund, “The Seminar has become an important factor in the intellectual life of the University. It is the mirror of the Graduate School ---the place where scholars contend, the place where all segments of the University are gathered for academic discourse.”

And so it continues to this present day and occasion: the 35th Anniversary of that forum “where scholars contend.” Since the Seminar's inception in that fall of 1970, 409 papers have been presented by many different scholars, some visiting, but mostly local. Papers and scholars represent numerous disciplines--from Anthropology to Zoology-and the authors span the spectrum of age--from young instructors testing the waters to seasoned professors continuing to pursue the cutting edges. A list of presenters and their topics follows this introduction.

We cannot conclude these introductory notes without noting that the Aquinas Fund did not cease to be interested in what had been started here with the Aquinas Program, and in the institution itself. Funds were made available on an individual basis to support a number of minority and international students in their courses of study. In the mid 1970's funds were made available to underwrite a two year visiting professorship in the history of science. And, most substantial of all, a challenge grant of $200,000 was awarded the University toward funding an endowed chair for the Robert Fisher Oxnam Professorship in Science and Society - a chair first held by Dr. John Ollom and currently occupied by Dr. David Kohn. Genuinely heartfelt thanks must go to the Aquinas Fund from the University and from all the participants who have benefited from the largess bestowed upon us.

And now, in conclusion, we must pay our tributes and commendations to all those in the campus community who have contributed so substantially to an enterprise, wholly voluntary, which has enriched our intellectual life for thirty-five years and to continue to live on. Above all, our thanks to Dr. Shirley Sugerman, who has served the Seminar since it's very inception as the Coordinator/Director: initially coping with myriad details of arranging for the needs of our visiting colleagues and the Seminar; and subsequently, inviting, cajoling, encouraging, reminding, and arranging for the annual topics and faculty presenters. Also, to the late Dean Bard Thompson, without whose vision, dedication, and relentless energy, none of this would have happened - and, too, to his successor deans, Merrill Skaggs and Jim Pain, who have continued to lend their interest, encouragement, and support. Certainly to Robert Oxnam without whose intense interest and support and persuasive power with the Aquinas Fund none of this could have happened the way it did. Successor presidents too, Paul Hardin and Tom Kean, have continued to support the Seminar as a valuable enterprise on a campus ever claiming a commitment to interdisciplinary pursuits.

We express our ongoing appreciation to that small group of faculty who, across the years, have served as an advisory committee to elaborate programming and keep the whole project productive and in order, including: originally Phil Jensen and John von der Heide; throughout the years Robert Chapman*, David Graybeal, Tom Oden, James O'Kane, John Ollom, Neal Riemer*, Roger Wescott*, Pat Boeshaar, and Barent Johnson; and more recently Alan Candiotti, Heather Elkins, Robert Ready, Andrew Scrimgeour and Merrill Skaggs. The three academic deans Paolo Cucchi, Jim Pain and Maxine Beach have also been on the steering committee. Above all, we applaud all those who have made presentations and those who have shared in the rigorous discussion thereof, in that “place where scholars contend.”

Barent Johnson
University Registrar, Emeritus
University Archivist, Emeritus

*deceased

1970-71 PSYCHOLOGY, HISTORY, AND CULTURE

1971-72 PERMANENCE AND CHANGE

1972-73 PERMANENCE AND CHANGE II

1973-74 CHANGING PATTERNS OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR

1974-75 PSYCHOLOGY, TECHNOLOGY, AND CULTURE

1975-76 CONTINUITIES AND DISCONTINUITIES IN MODERN CONSCIOUSNESS

1976-77 CONTINUITIES AND DISCONTINUITIES IN MODERN CONSCIOUSNESS II

1977-78 CONTINUITIES AND DISCONTINUITIES IN MODERN CONSCIOUSNESS III

1978-79 SELF AND IDENTITY

1979-80 SYSTEMATIC FORGETTING AND COLLECTIVE REMEMBERING

1980-81 SYSTEMATIC FORGETTING AND COLLECTIVE REMEMBERING II

1981-82 SYSTEMATIC FORGETTING AND COLLECTIVE REMEMBERING II

1982-83 THE CLASSICS REVISITED

1983-84 THE CLASSICS REVISITED II

1984-85 VARIETIES OF HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS

1985-86 VARIETIES OF HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS II

1986-87 VARIETIES OF HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS III

1987-88 VARIETIES OF HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS (POST-MODERNISM)

1988-89 VARIETIES OF HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS (CIVIL CONSCIOUSNESS)

1989-90 VARIETIES OF HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS (CIVIC CONSCIOUSNESS II)

1990-91 EVENTS THAT TRANSFORM THINKING

1991-92 EVENTS THAT TRANSFORM THINKING II

1992-93 EXPECTATIONS AND OUTCOMES

1993-94 EXPECTATIONS AND OUTCOMES II

1994-95 EXPECTATIONS AND OUTCOMES III

1995-96 EXPECTATIONS AND OUTCOMES IV

Philip Mundo. “The Domestic Politics of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).” 5/6/96. 2 cassettes.

1996-97 EXPECTATIONS AND OUTCOMES V

1997-98 EXPECTATIONS AND OUTCOMES VI

1998-99 EXPECTATIONS AND OUTCOMES VII

1999-2000 PHENOMENON OF THE MILLENNIUM: EXPECTATIONS AND OUTCOMES

2000-01 PHENOMENON OF THE MILLENNIUM: EXPECTATIONS AND OUTCOMES II

2001-02 DIMENSIONS OF GLOBAL AWARENESS

2002-03 DIMENSIONS ON GLOBAL AWARENESS II

2003-04 DIMENSIONS ON GLOBAL AWARENESS III

2004-2005 TWELVE PAPERS IN SEARCH OF A THEME

1999-2000 Aquinas Faculty Seminar Steer Committee Meeting. 2 cassettes.

Box 1

October 9, 1973

April 26, 1976

Box 2

April 26, 1976

March 9, 1978

Box 3

March 9, 1978

November 12, 1979

Box 4

December 3, 1979

March 8, 1982

Box 5

March 8, 1982

February 27, 1984

Box 6

March 12, 1984

May 19, 1986

Box 7

October 12, 1986

September 26, 1988

Box 8

October 17, 1986

April 16, 1990

Box 9

April 30, 1990

November 4, 1991

Box 10

November 18, 1991

November 8, 1993

Box 11

November 23, 1993

April 24, 1995

Box 12

April 24, 1995

February 24, 1997

Box 13

March 24, 1997

February 22, 1999

Box 14

February 22, 1999

December 3, 2001