News Release

All Campus

Cerro Coso Faculty Member Participating in Prestigious University Programs

November 7, 2007

Dr. Anne Benvenuti, Professor of Philosophy/Psychology at Cerro Coso has been invited to participate in the Visiting Scholar Program at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. for the 2007-2008 academic year. Benvenuti is in the Center for Clinical Bioethics in the Medical School, working with Professor James Giordano. Dr. Giordano is also Vice President for the Center for Brain, Mind, and Healing Research at the Samueli Institute. Benvenuti is developing a research and writing agenda related to the study of Brain, Mind, and Healing. The invitation to Georgetown and this particular work is a direct result of her second invited presentation at the Oxford University Round Table (Exeter College 2006, Lincoln College 2007) on Science and Religion, and the publication of her first paper, "Science and Religion as Modes of Human Participation in the Cosmos," in the Forum on Public Policy (summer 2007).

Dr. Benvenuti also has a publication coming out in the December issue of Presence, the journal of Spiritual Directors International, a non-denominational professional organization for the study of spiritual experience. The up-coming article is entitled, "Love Dogs" and it is about the importance of the natural world to human spiritual development.

Professor Benvenuti has also been invited to teach a "Semester at Sea" for the University of Virginia in spring 2008. During the spring semester Benvenuti will be traveling around the world with approximately 500 students and 30 faculty, and will teach three courses: 1) Mental Health from a Global Perspective, 2) Global Women's Issues from a United Nations Perspective, and 3) an interdisciplinary course called Human Unity and Diversity, a course she developed for Cerro Coso in 2003. About this assignment Benvenuti said, "It is quite an honor to be selected, but I mostly feel like I won the lottery!"

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Joann Handeland, Director of Public Information (760) 384-6230