2016 Newsletter

Giving in honor of Herbst’s first two directors

Anonymous — Tue, 14 Jun 2016 21:16:31 +0000

Giving in honor of Herbst’s first two directors Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 06/14/2016 - 15:16

Last summer, we announced the 2015 death of Athanasios (Thanasi) Moulakis, the program’s founding director. If you were here in the Program’s first decade or so, you will remember Thanasi’s vibrant and dynamic personality. He taught many sections of its original seminars as well as History of Technology and Engineering Ethics. His 4000-level seminars often included “field trips” to the museums and jazz clubs of great American cities; he also taught a summer course in Florence, Italy. If you would like to make a contribution in memory of Thanasi, please click here and select Yes under “Is this gift in memory or in honor of someone?”

Wayne Ambler, the program’s second director, retired last year on June 1. He is now enjoying a leisurely combination of reading, translating and writing -- with no papers to grade. You might have had Wayne as a teacher in HUEN 1010 and 3100, or in Engineering, Science and Society, a course he designed and developed. His greatest fame, though, comes from his Culture Wars in Rome, a Maymester course taught in the Eternal City itself. If you would like to make a contribution in honor of Wayne, please click here and select Yes under “Is this gift in memory or in honor of someone?”

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2016 Message from the Director

Anonymous — Tue, 14 Jun 2016 20:02:00 +0000

2016 Message from the Director Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 06/14/2016 - 14:02 Leland Giovannelli

Hello, Alumni and Friends!

It’s been another wonderful year for the Herbst Program. Our biggest news is that our instructor search has been successful. From a field of more than 170 applicants, the eight Herbst faculty unanimously agreed on the two top candidates: Shilo Brooks and Laura Rabinowitz. Both of them will be starting in August, and you can read more about them below.

We’ve had great success with the new sections of HUEN 1010 for international students whose English language skills need more attention. With generous funding from the Engineering Excellence Fund (EEF), we offered three sections in 2015-16, and we will offer four in 2016-17. These sections are just as rigorous as our regular 1010 sections, but tend to be more deeply text-based and include spontaneous lessons on grammar, vocabulary and culture. Students log extra hours on writing, working with a TA and attending weekly one-on-one conferences with their instructor. A lot of work? Yes, but students and instructors alike give high marks to these sections!

In March, Herbst faculty Andrea Kowalchuk and Paul Diduch, with help from the Department of Computer Science, hosted Stuart Russell from UC Berkeley for a talk on artificial intelligence (read more below). This event will pave the way for more collaboration between Herbst and various engineering departments.

Welcoming Our New Faculty

Laura Rabinowitz comes most recently from the University of Toronto, where she has been teaching a course on virtue and politics in classical thought. Readings for the class were wide-ranging, including works of tragedy, comedy, history and philosophy. Before beginning her postdoctoral fellowship at Toronto, Laura received her PhD from the University of Texas at Austin, writing a dissertation on the virtue of moderation in Plato’s thought. She did her undergraduate work at Skidmore College in upstate New York, majoring in philosophy and government, with a minor in studio art (focusing on ceramics). Laura’s undergraduate studies involved formative travels in Berlin and Vienna, and after graduating she lived for a time in Dharamsala, India. While she didn’t manage to meet the Dalai Lama, she did have an encounter with his dog. She hopes she’ll be able to contribute to Herbst students’ memorable study abroad experiences. A fan of the ancient Greek peripatetic tradition, Laura plans to step things up a bit, taking advantage of Boulder’s beautiful trails and launching a hiking/reading group. She can’t wait to join the Herbst Program in its embrace of a humanities education.

Shilo Brooks comes to us from the Program on Constitutionalism and Democracy at the University of Virginia, where he has been teaching courses on American political thought and finishing a book on the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. Before his fellowship at UVA, he was a visiting assistant professor at Bowdoin College, where he taught political theory. He is eager to introduce Herbst students to foundational human questions that confront a wide variety of themes, from leadership and love to the meaning of modern life and the effects of modern technology on the human soul. In his free time, he enjoys writing, studying the history of American rock and pop music, and learning about the heroes and villains of the Old West.

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Herbst hosts expert on artificial intelligence

Anonymous — Tue, 14 Jun 2016 06:00:00 +0000

Herbst hosts expert on artificial intelligence Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 06/14/2016 - 00:00

This past semester, with the generous support of the Engineering Excellence Fund and the Dean’s Office, Herbst hosted Stuart Russell, a professor of computer science at University of California, Berkeley.

Russell, a lively, thoughtful and compelling speaker, is an international authority on artificial intelligence whose book "Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach" is the standard text in AI (it has been translated into 13 languages and is used in over 1300 universities in 116 countries). He also works for the United Nations, developing a new global seismic monitoring system for the nuclear-test-ban treaty.

During his visit, Russell spoke to a small group of students about the “Open Letter on Autonomous Weapons.” The letter, signed by more than 20,000 AI and robotics researchers, calls for “a ban on offensive autonomous weapons beyond meaningful human control.” Russell made a compelling case for transnational restrictions in the field.

That evening, Russell spoke to an audience of more than 250 Buffs, revealing his concerns for the long-term future of artificial intelligence and its implications for human beings.

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