Collegiate Seminar Program

It’s easy to think of memories as simply static photos, pulled from a mental scrapbook. However, current research shows that memories are, in fact, dynamic recreations of past events that ultimately shape our identities. We will explore how memories are encoded in the brain, where our memories are stored, and how the formation of new memories changes the connections between nerve cells. The ultimate goal of this research is to one day find methods for improving memory in aging individuals and for restoring it in those suffering mental illness, disease, or brain injury.

Seminar Date: Saturday, September 16th, 2023

Time: 10:00 AM-12:00 PM ET

Format: In-Person

Professor: Thomas Carew is a professor of Neural Science at the NYU College of Arts and Science. His labratory is interested in understanding how the brain acquires, stores and retrieves information. He formally served as the Dean of the NYU Faculty of Arts and Science.

How do people understand inequality? We'll talk about psychological, organizational, and sociological research that shows when and why people recognize or deny inequality. We'll also talk about how to intervene to help people be more accurate in their recognition of inequality. In turn, when people recognize inequality, they are more likely to try to change it, through a variety of behaviors and strategies. We will discuss in the context of race, gender, social class, and other kinds of societal inequality.

Seminar Date: Sunday, September 17th, 2023

Time: 10:00 AM-12:00 PM ET

Format: Online

Professor: Taylor Philips is an Assistant Professor of Management & Organizations at NYU Stern School of Business. Professor Phillips’ research investigates diversity and hierarchy management. Her work focuses on engaging traditionally privileged groups in diversity efforts and identifying methods to increase cooperation between the advantaged and disadvantaged. She also explores the role advantaging processes play in determining employee and organizational outcomes. 

Can popular movies like “Mary Poppins” or “Wall Street” give us insight into complex topics such as bank runs and insider trading? We explore what we can learn, and what we can’t learn, about finance from Hollywood while viewing and discussing movie clips.

Seminar Date: Saturday, September 23rd, 2023

Time: 10:00 AM-12:00 PM ET

Format: In-Person

Professor: Robert Whitelaw is the Vice Dean of the Undergraduate College and the Edward C. Johnson 3d Professor of Entrepreneurial Finance at the Leonard N. Stern School of Business, New York University. His research interests include empirical asset pricing, including the resolution of the market-level risk-return puzzle, the role of information processing in explaining excess volatility, and the impact of frictions in generating apparent market inefficiency. 

An exploration of how photography can be used in three distinct ways: to document events (e.g. war photography); to bear witness (someone telling their truth); and to advocate for social change (from the Civil Rights movement to today’s issues). No background in photography needed – this seminar considers the role played by images in our culture.

Seminar Date: Saturday, September 30th, 2023

Time: 10:00 AM-12:00 PM ET

Format: Online

Professor: Ulrich Baer, professor of German and Comparative Literature. Professor Baer has held appointments in the department of English in NYU's Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the department of Photography and Imaging in the Tisch School of the Arts.

Utilizing Tara Yosso's Community Cultural Wealth Framework, this session will encourage participants to lean on their current strengths as learners from a particular cultural context in an effort to maximize their experiences while gaining access to and attending college.

Seminar Date: Saturday, October 7th, 2023

Time: 10:00 AM-12:00 PM ET

Format: Online

Professor: Mike Funk is a clinical Associate Professor and Program Director of Higher Education and Postsecondary Program at NYU Steinhardt. Michael's scholarship primarily focuses on issues of equity, diversity, and inclusion. In 2016 and 2017 he co-authored the Racism chapters for the respective Readings and Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice latest editions. Furthermore, he authored a chapter entitled, "Creating Inclusive Classrooms as an Imperative for Historically Underrepresented Groups in Higher Education" for the forthcoming College at the Crossroads: Taking sides on contested issues. 

How does the writer makes the personal universal? We have an idea, we link it to an image, and from the image comes a story. Through in-class writing exercises, with an eye toward image and repetition, we will construct drafts of their own poems and prose.

Seminar Date: Saturday, October 14th, 2023

Time: 10:00 AM-12:00 PM ET

Format: Online

Professor: Tim Tomlinson is the author of the short story collection, This Is Not Happening to You, and two books of poetry, Requiem for the Tree Fort I Set on Fire, and Yolanda: An Oral History in Verse. He teaches writing in Liberal Studies.

Even if we don’t pay much attention to garbage, it is a constant of everyday life. We reveal the culturally complex history and infrastructure of New York’s Department of Sanitation and shows how the DSNY keeps the city alive, every single day.

Seminar Date: Sunday, October 22nd, 2023

Time: 10:00 AM-12:00 PM ET

Format: In-Person

Professor: Robin Nagle is a clinical professor in NYU Liberal Studies. Her research includes the many forms of labor and infrastructure that waste requires, the spatial demands it imposes on urban areas, the organizational responses it inspires, and the cultural practices and attitudes that adhere to it

An informal introduction to the large and currently research active mathematical theory of knots and links. We will introduce "linking numbers" of links (which go back to the great mathematical scientist Gauss in the early 19th century) and other (20th & 21th century) invariants of knots and links which can be used to study and provably distinguish knots from each other. We briefly indicate some (late 20th and early 21th century) relations to physics and also briefly introduce high-dimensional knots (first discovered in the 20th century).

Seminar Date: Sunday, October 29th, 2023

Time: 10:00 AM-12:00 PM ET

Format: In-Person

Professor: Sylvain Cappell is a Julius Silver Professor of Mathematics at NYU's Courant Institute of Mathematical Science and an American Mathematical Society Fellow. 

As inequality increases in the U.S., the political system becomes more polarized and populist leaders take over political parties. Latin American democracies are a case study that helps us better understand the kind of democracy the U.S. is becoming.

Seminar Date: Saturday, November 4th, 2023

Time: 10:00 AM-12:00 PM ET

Format: In-Person

Professor: Patricio Navia is a Clinical Professor of Liberal Studies and Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at New York University. Navia holds a Ph.D. in Politics from New York University, an M.A. in Political Science from the University of Chicago and a B.A. in Political Sciences and Sociology from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has been a visiting professor at Princeton University, New School University, Universidad de Salamanca, Universidad de Chile and NYU Buenos Aires, and a visiting fellow at the University of Miami. He has published scholarly articles and book chapters on democratization, electoral rules and democratic institutions in Latin America.

How do scientists study virus-host interactions and determine the different pathways that are involved? There is a struggle between the attempt of the virus to replicate and spread to a new host and the host to eliminate the infection and recover. Many factors are involved in the dynamic that ultimately determines the outcome.

Seminar Date: Saturday, November 11th, 2023

Time: 10:00 AM-12:00 PM ET

Format: In-Person

Professor: Carol Shoshkes Reiss, is Emerita Professor of Biology at New York University. Her research focused on the dynamic contest between the mouse immune system and virus replication during infection of the central nervous system. Dr. Reiss was editor-in-chief of the journal Viral Immunology (2000-2006) and is currently editor-in-chief of the journal DNA and Cell Biology (2012-present).

Artificial Intelligence, robots, smart cities, machine learning, intelligent systems – these are the buzzwords for the new technological revolution. Can we learn from our last technological transformation and find a way for technology to work for all members of our global society – not just those privileged by race, gender, social class, physical ability, religion, or nationality?

Seminar Date: Saturday, December 9th, 2023

Time: 10:00 AM-12:00 PM ET

Format: In-Person

Professor: Charlton McIlwain is the Vice Provost for Faculty Engagement and Development, and an associate professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at NYU Steinhardt. His work focuses on the intersections of race, digital media, and racial justice activism. He recently published a book, Black Software: The Internet & Racial Justice, From the AfroNet to Black Lives Matter (Oxford University Press).