Occidental faculty are bringing their research off-campus through a new lecture series, OxyTalks “On Tap.“ These events — intended for Occidental students and staff as well as local community members — have been held at Kiez Küche & Beer Garden, a German restaurant and ale house on York Boulevard. Occidental’s Center for Research and Scholarship (CRS) organizes these events.
Director of the CRS and Associate Professor of Cognitive Science Sasha Sherman said the CRS is focused on professional development for faculty members.
“It’s about amplifying faculty research on and off campus and thinking about the ways that we can tell Oxy’s faculty stories,” Sherman said.
Inspired by a nationwide event series Lectures on Tap that many of the college’s faculty participate in, Sherman said the CRS wanted to create a centralized program to facilitate community outreach and showcase work.
“The idea [is] that we could talk about our work in this more casual, intimate setting of a restaurant and also contribute to a local business,” Sherman said.
Sherman said Lectures on Tap uses a model that connects academics with bars and allows professors to present their work in a more accessible space. This model has been used across colleges and institutions to allow faculty to share their work, Sherman said, and Lectures on Tap centralizes the process by making it more available to bars and professors.
While OxyTalks “On Tap” bears resemblance to Lectures on Tap, Sherman said the college’s program is not in connection with the larger event series.
“It’s more so modeled off of Lectures on Tap, which is based on an old model,” Sherman said. “What Lectures on Tap does is they go around to many different bars, [but] we’ve decided we want to stay in our community.”
Sherman said by hosting events off-campus, the CRS is able to welcome more people than they might otherwise see at a talk on campus.
“We’re hoping to get a bigger and broader audience,” Sherman said. “In our ideal world it would be a mix of Oxy community and our local community.”
Assistant Professor of Cognitive Science Stephanie Nelli gave the most recent lecture March 25 at Kiez, titled “AI & Society.” Nelli said that as a researcher on AI, she enjoys getting direct information on what people are interested in when it comes to her area of expertise.
“For me, selfishly, it’s interesting always to see what and how people are thinking about AI, what the kind of ‘common knowledge’ is about AI and what people are concerned about,” Nelli said.
Violet Schultz* (senior), who attended the most recent OxyTalks “On Tap” event, said that even after graduation, she would consider coming back to off-campus Occidental events like these.
“If I’m in the area, and the talks are open to the community, then [I] definitely [see myself coming back],” Schultz said. “It was a great venue, especially being in Southern California.”
Schultz said she learned a lot from Nelli’s talk and from hearing community members’ questions afterward.
“[The talk was] a good supplement to what we’re learning in the classroom, and it was good meeting some community members who have similar interests,” Schultz said.
According to Nelli, around 25 people attended the event, with an even split of Occidental-affiliated attendees and community members.
Nelli said that one attendee, a science fiction writer, came to the event from Torrance. She said there is both a lot of interest and a lot of fear around the topic of AI. Nelli said she sees it as her responsibility as a professor and academic to help educate the public about AI.
“I think there’s a vague sense of fear about AI. But also, most people, fair enough, aren’t going to go get a math degree or computer science degree or cognitive science degree,” Nelli said. “So I think being able to communicate with [the general public]; it might not make them less fearful but at least their fears are grounded in some understanding.”
Nelli said giving this lecture is an opportunity for her research to have a greater impact outside of the academic and professional circles she works in. According to Nelli, now is a critical time for sharing knowledge with those who are not in higher education settings.
“I think that right now in this country, across the world […] I think there’s some distrust of intellectuals and academics and universities,” Nelli said. “While I don’t think it’s totally deserved, I don’t think it’s totally undeserved.”
Nelli said she thinks it is the responsibility of professors and academics to meet people where they are and to open up learning to everybody, especially those outside of academic institutions. Nelli said she sees this kind of program as an opportunity to do this.
“It’s also on professors and educators and scientists to make their work digestible, and to disseminate it, and not to look down their noses at people who don’t understand […] and not to just complain about the fact that nobody trusts us anymore,” Nelli said.
According to Nelli, as AI becomes more integrated into society, people will interact less with each other and more with AI models. Nelli said that OxyTalks “On Tap” gives the community the opportunity to reconnect with one another and have conversations.
“I think one amazing thing [about the event] […] is that we’re just a bunch of people,” Nelli said. “We’re talking about AI, but we’re talking to each other about it and exchanging ideas. We’re putting some of that humanity back.”
*Violet Schultz is a former copy editor for The Occidental.
Contact Amelia Darling at adarling@oxy.edu and Claire Wilson-Black at wilsonblack@oxy.edu.
