Students in the Jefferson Fellows and the Jefferson Scholars programs are organizing a forum about health care and the 21st-century “good Samaritan” this fall to foster conversation across various disciplines.
The Jefferson Fellows Forum for Interdisciplinary Dialogue will take place Sept. 27 at the Miller Center of Public Affairs and will be a “day-long event meant to bring speakers together from various departments from across the University,” Jefferson Fellow Rachael Beaton said.
The goal is to expose connections among disciplines that at first glance may seem to be completely unrelated, Beaton said, thereby uniting the University.
“We think it’s important because it is easy to feel a divide between the humanities, social science[s] and hard science[s],” Beaton said. “When you view these fields in a different light, you can see how similar they are and how there really isn’t a divide between them.”
The idea to organize such a program was proposed several years ago, Beaton explained, but this is the first year the Jefferson Fellows and Jefferson Scholars have been able to fully organize and present the forum.
“This was an idea completely hatched by the Fellows themselves,” Graduate Fellowship Program Director Doug Trout said. “The idea was that every year they would come up with a broad discussion piece and then invite different members of the University to come and discuss the broad topic.”
The inaugural forum will feature three panels and one keynote speaker, Trout said, noting that “this year’s topic is at the heart of academics, both at the University and across the country.”
According to Trout, the Jefferson Scholars and Jefferson Fellows hope to make this forum an annual University event.
“The Fellows are trying to lead the way of promoting [interdisciplinary] discussions of this type,” Trout said, noting the Jefferson Scholars and Fellows are hoping to tie together the academic world with the “real world.”
“There are issues here that need to be discussed,” Trout said, “and hopefully we can provide the forum to do it.”
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