The University Roundtable at the University of Minnesota started in 2014 and has hosted speakers like molecular biologist Denis Alexander (Cambridge University, UK), political theorist Patrick Deneen (Notre Dame), neurobiologist William Hurlbut (Stanford), climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe (Texas Tech University), theologian Miroslav Volf (Yale), physicist Stephen Barr (University of Delaware), sociologist Elaine Ecklund (Rice University), philosopher Meghan Sullivan (Notre Dame), and neuroscientist Bill Newsome (Stanford). We are part of a larger network of University Roundtables that began in 2002 and have since hosted thousands of faculty members at Harvard, MIT, Yale, Brown, and other universities.
the kind of night that should be the norm in academia — serious conversation among smart people about contested issues, with pretty much everyone who spoke and counter-spoke both witty and civil.
– Harry Lewis, former Dean of Harvard College
The goal of a University Roundtable is to foster cross-disciplinary community and dialogue among faculty that explores the intersection of current scholarship with various ethical, worldview, and religious or non-religious perspectives. The former Dean of Harvard College, Harry Lewis, commented that Roundtables are “the kind of night that should be the norm in academia — serious conversation among smart people about contested issues, with pretty much everyone who spoke and counter-spoke both witty and civil.” Our hope is that these interactions will spark innovative new approaches to a diverse set of academic and personal questions. Ideally, conversations begun at University Roundtable dinners will continue in classrooms, seminars, discussion groups, coffee shops, and in every corner of the Twin Cities.
Roundtables are in-person events at a venue on or close to campus. The event includes dinner, drinks, dessert, centered around substantial table discussion after brief remarks from our presenters. At the close of our evening, we include time for questions and comments directed to each other and to our presenters. The Roundtables are invite-only events, please let us know if you would like to be considered as a participant.
Some past University Roundtables have been made possible by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation, a philanthropic catalyst for discoveries related to the big questions of human purpose and ultimate reality. Additional funding has been provided by generous scholars and donors invested in seeing the University engage with the big questions.
A Conversation with Dr. Satyan Devadoss and Dr. Constantin Aliferis (Director of the Institute for Health Informatics and Chief Research Informatics Officer at the Clinical and Translational Science Institute, UMN)
Tuesday, October 1, 2024 – Anselm House will host a Roundtable with Dr. Satyan Devadoss (Mathematics, University of San Diego) and Dr. Constantin Aliferis (Director of the Institute for Health Informatics, UMN) on whether human-machine partnerships (e.g. AI, but also other tools) make us less human.
Interested? Are you a faculty or academic staff at the University of Minnesota? Click the button below to be put on the invite list.
April 2024 – Beauty is elusive. Yet, it captures our imagination and inspires us to remarkable achievements of creativity and exploration. In certain fields of science, beauty is even regarded as a guide to truth, especially in the disciplines of mathematics and physics, although this perspective is certainly not universally embraced. What is beauty, and how does it relate to truth? Can beauty help us find the truth about the world and ourselves? Is it an inherent aspect of the world or a construct of our senses? Could it even serve as a signpost to something beyond the material realm? We would love for you to join this discussion!
March 2023 – Scientific misconduct is not new. On a regular basis, allegations of academic misconduct pop up in the media, and also the UMN has experienced several of these cases. The full spectrum ranges from serious research misconduct (RM) in the form of falsification, fabrication and plagiarism (FFP), to questionable and detrimental research processes (see for example a recent article in Nature). Training sessions in research ethics are now mandatory for most researchers and policies have been created to increase awareness of ethical guidelines in hopes to prevent future cases. The stakes are high and research shows that a significant percentage of researchers have engaged in some form of questionable behavior.
October 2022 – Are traditional notions of free choice and personal responsibility are compatible with current neuroscientific understanding of the brain and cognition. Do our neurons determine who we are and what we do (full stop)? Or, alternatively, do we have some say in the matter? And what are some implications of this question?
As the world has changed remarkably over the last few decades, it is no secret that the academic profession has changed with it. The burden of administrative duties, the challenge of teaching distracted students, and the continuous interruptions of email and smartphone notifications, have left many in the academic profession wondering whether it is possible to flourish.
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Office Phone: 612-378-1935
