Education as Transformation" Subject of March 8 Lecture by Dr. Arthur Zajonc

SALISBURY, MD---Dr. Arthur G. Zajonc, professor of physics at Amherst College, discusses "Education as Transformation" on Wednesday, March 8, at 7 p.m., at Salisbury State University.

Part of this spring's lecture series, "Broadening the Conversation: Listening to Spiritual Perspectives," Zajonc's talk is in the Wicomico Room of the Guerrieri University Center. Admission is free and the public is invited.

Zajonc studies the experimental foundations of quantum mechanics and has co-authored a book, The Quantum Challenge: Modern Research on the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, for general readers. He has an interest in the relation between the sciences and the humanities, most recently focusing on scientific studies conducted by German poet and dramatist Johann Wolfgang van Goethe.

"An understanding of knowing is the key to seeing education as transformation," said Zajonc, who earned his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1976. "From a partial view of knowing stems not only an impoverished imagination of education, but also the radical and misguided separation of science and spirituality.

"This separation has been an important factor in shaping Western culture for centuries," Zajonc continued, "and more recently is reflected in higher education. When we have re- grounded both science and spirituality in the soil of experience, we will find ways of establishing the fruitful relationship between our intellectual and moral lives and appreciate the common cognitive source for both."

From 1995-97 Zajonc was the senior program director at the Fetzer Institute, a nonprofit private operating foundation that supports research, education and service programs, exploring the integral relationships among body, mind and spirit. Headquartered in Kalamazoo, MI, some of the projects Zajonc developed and managed for Fetzer included: PeaceJam, a series of youth dialogues with eight Nobel Peace Prize laureates; planning and development for a Center for Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona; and analysis for the future of work and the development of a New Work movement.

For more information on Zajonc's presentation or a complete listing of cultural events at SSU this spring, please contact the SSU Public Relations Office at 410-543-6030.