Past Events

Our Steinmetz Day 2026 special guest Vauhini Vara introduced, chaired, and moderated this special session, featuring two Union Students: Amelia Keese and Shriya Biswas. Both students presented their interdisciplinary work at the intersections of literary studies, Digital Humanities, and Computer Science, and these presentations were followed by Q&A discussion with the audience. This event was held as part of the Charles Proteus Steinmetz Symposium on Friday, May 8, 2026 from 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM at Union College's Olin Auditorium.

Vauhini Vara is an award-winning author, journalist for The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, and The New Yorker, and finalist for the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Vauhini Vara delivered her lecture "If AI Can Write [not Communicate], Why Should We?" on Thursday, May 7, 2026 at 5:00 PM at Union College's Reamer Center Auditorium. This event was made possible through a partnership bringing together Union College's Templeton Institute with the Departments of English and Computer Science.

Vauhini Vara is an award-winning author, journalist for The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, and The New Yorker and finalist for the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Established in 2008, the Robert E. Martinson '65 Engineering and Liberal Education (ELE) Symposium brings together faculty, students, and administrators from across the United States and beyond to explore the benefits and challenges of a close partnership between engineering education and a liberal education.

The 2025 symposium, co-sponsored and organized by the Templeton Institute, was held in person in an intimate setting on Union College's campus in September. ELE 2025 featured the broad theme of Engineering and Society. The symposium included podium and poster presentations delivered by interdisciplinary scholars from a wide range of institutions as well as a special workshop organized and hosted by ABET.

Astronaut and visionary futurist, Dr. Sian Proctor delivered the symposium's keynote, which also served as the annual lecture of Union College's Feigenbaum Forum on Innovation and Creativity.

Union College was pleased to welcome astronaut and visionary futurist Dr. Sian Proctor as the keynote speaker for the 2025 Feigenbaum Forum on Innovation and Creativity. This program was a featured event of the Robert E. Martinson '65 Engineering & Liberal Education Symposium. Both the forum and the symposium were organized in collaboration with the Templeton Institute.

Dr. Proctor's pioneering work bridges the worlds of science, space exploration, humanity, and creative expression. Her keynote address was titled "EarthLight: Exploring the Intersection of Art, Science, and Engineering for Earth and Beyond."

Dr. D. Fox Harrell chaired and moderated this special session, featuring three Union Students: Gabriella Baratier, Ziayan Omer, and Emmett Parkerson. Each student presented a lightning talk about their research followed by a Q&A discussion.This event was held as part of The Charles Proteus Steinmetz Symposium on Friday, May 9, 2025

Dr. Harrell is Professor of Digital Media, Computing, and Artificial Intelligence at MIT in the Comparative Media Studies Program, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), and Institute for Data, Systems, and Society. He is the founder and director of the MIT Center for Advanced Virtuality. He is a Nebula Award finalist, Emmy Award winner, and recipient of an NSF CAREER Award.

D. Fox Harrell, Ph.D. came to Union College to deliver his lecture "Imagination and Virtuality: Computing for Social Good" on Thursday, May 8, 2025. This event was made possible through the partnership of Union College's Templeton Institute and Schaffer Library.

Dr Harrell is Professor of Digital Media, Computing, and Artificial Intelligence at MIT in the Comparative Media Studies Program, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), and Institute for Data, Systems, and Society. He is the founder and director of the MIT Center for Advanced Virtuality. His research explores the relationship between imagination and computation and involves inventing new forms of VR, computational narrative, videogaming for social impact, and related digital media forms. He is a Nebula Award finalist, Emmy Award winner, and recipient of an NSF CAREER Award.

Renowned philosopher Dr. David J. Chalmers came to Union College to deliver a major lecture, entitled "Can ChatGPT Think?," at the Nott Memorial on the evening of October 30th, 2024 (5:00-6:30 PM). This event was made possible through generous sponsorship by the Feigenbaum Forum for Innovation and Creativity, and was put on in partnership with the Templeton Institute and Union's Department of Philosophy.

David Chalmers is University Professor of Philosophy and Neural Science and Co-Director of the Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness at New York University. He has given the John Locke Lectures and has been awarded the Jean Nicod Prize. He is known for formulating the "hard problem" of consciousness, which inspired Tom Stoppard's play The Hard Problem, and for the idea of the "extended mind," which posits that the tools we use can become parts of our minds. (Images Courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

The TI also established an interdisciplinary reading group for faculty to study and discuss Prof. Chalmers's important recent book, Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy (New York: Norton, 2022).

Talk By Professor Rudi Seising on A History of Artificial Intelligence

Prof. Rudi Seising is a senior research fellow in the Research Institute of the German Museum in Munich, one of the largest science and technology museums in the world, and is a lecturer in history of technology at the University of Munich. Union's History Department and Templeton Institute partnered to host Prof. Seising for this lecture.

The aim of this session was to showcase the varied impacts of Artificial Intelligence on higher education. We explored Artificial Intelligence in the context of Union's liberal arts model of education, which emphasizes the technical aspects and humanist aspects of a topic like AI in equal measure. We heard faculty and student perspectives on issues such as the ethics around AI, philosophical aspects of machine intelligence, and the use of AI technology to solve complex problems. The participants were selected by the Co-Directors of the Templeton Institute to showcase diverse views on AI at the College. This event brought together short lightning talks on these topics with roughly a half-hour discussion among panelists and with the audience.

Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer (2023) and Union College Multidisciplinary Faculty Panel to Explore the Film (February 2024)

The Templeton Institute and Proctors Theater partnered with Film Studies, Physics and Astronomy, and History at Union to screen Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer (2023) at Proctors' GE Theatre. The screening was free to all members of our community, who presented their Union College ID card at the Box Office at Proctors for the 7 PM showing on Tuesday, February 13th. Additionally, buses began running at 6:30 PM that evening from the campus's Old Chapel traffic circle for students, staff, and faculty whom were looking for transport from campus to the theater (with return buses starting at 10 PM that evening). Complimentary refreshments for the Union community (who presented Union ID cards) were also served at Proctors during the event.

Following this screening, the TI hosted a multidisciplinary faculty panel exploring Nolan's film. This panel was held during Common Hour on Thursday, February 15th at O'Brien Center 117. Refreshments began at 12:30 PM that afternoon in the lower lobby of O'Brien, and our interdisciplinary panel began promptly at 12:55 PM in 117, where Prof. Chad Orzel (Physics and Astronomy), Prof. Mark Walker (History, STS), and Prof. Jenelle Troxell (English, Film Studies, GSWS) gave short talks examining the film and held a Q&A with our audience.

This panel was part of the Templeton Institute’s programming around our two-year theme focusing on Artificial Intelligence. We wanted to begin this programming with the various ways that faculty at Union are experimenting with Generative AI platforms like ChatGPT in their classrooms around campus. This panel was the first in a series of events that the Templeton Institute is planning—through both internal and external speakers—to address how AI is impacting higher education and especially in relation to matters of research and teaching. Speakers Included: Salil Benegal, Joseph B. Board Assistant Professor in Political Science; Robyn Reed, Outreach and Student Engagement Librarian at Schaffer Library; Andrea Pedeferri, Adjunct Faculty in Philosophy; and Nick Webb, Associate Professor of Computer Science and Director of Data Analytics.

Renowned AI expert was the keynote speaker at annual engineering and liberal arts symposium (September 2023)

Francesca Rossi, a globally recognized authority in generative artificial intelligence, delivered a talk titled "Artificial Intelligence: Latest Advances, Ethical Issues, and its Impact on Education."