October 3, 2011
Robert Louis Chianese, Emeritus Professor of English, has been selected as President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science--Pacific Division (2011-2012). Bob taught in our department for forty years (1969-2008), where he developed numerous interdisciplinary courses, linking literature and the humanities with areas such as history, art, sociology, psychology, ecology, religious studies, and philosophy. For many years he team-taught a literature and science course with Prof. Joyce Maxwell of Biology. Over the last twelve years and since retirement he has offered symposia linking literature and the arts with science at the annual meetings of the hundred-year-old AAAS-PD. As the first non-scientist president of this organization, Chianese will continue offering cross-fertilization projects linking various disciplines, with a symposium and reading last June on Poetry and Science, and a symposium and juried exhibition of “Art Inspired by Science” the year before.