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• The Ruth Bancroft Garden

  • When
    January 18, 2025
  •  
    11:00 AM
  • Location
    Ruth Bancroft Garden, 1552 Bancroft Rd. Walnut Creek, CA,
  • Spaces left
    13

  Register

  To register, we prefer you pay online via the black "REGISTER" button. For other options, contact O'Neil Dillon at oneilsdillon@gmail.com or 510-207-8761

  Created by Ruth Bancroft beginning in 1972, the garden houses a unique and diverse collection of cacti, succulents and drought-tolerant plants from around the world. It is considered one of the finest dry gardens in the world. 

  We will have 2 docent-led groups of 10 to see this world-class collection of climate-resilient plants and spectacular garden design.
  

  Cost: $25 PBKNCA members and guests, $30 all others
  Max group size: 20
  Registration closes Jan 2, 2025. No refunds after this date, either.
  PBKNCA lead:  Joanne Sandstrom
  ADA accessible with wheel-chairs for the gravel paths.
  Parking at garden entrance and on the side streets.
  

  If on the day of the event you find you can't make it, call O'Neil Dillon at 510-207-8761. Simply not paying or not replying prevents us from allowing someone else to attend. No-shows do NOT receive a refund!
  

  If you register, then later decide not to attend this event, there may be others on the waiting list who will be able to take your place, so please cancel (click HERE, or on "Already registered" if you are on the event page) or by contacting  O'Neil Dillon at oneilsdillon@gmail.com or 510-207-8761

  If you are on the waitlist and wish to be removed without being registered, please contact  O'Neil Dillon at oneilsdillon@gmail.com or 510-207-8761

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• 38th Asilomar Conference - Feb 14-17, 2025

  • Start
    February 14, 2025
  •  
    4:00 PM
  • End
    February 17, 2025
  •  
    12:00 PM
  • Location
    Asilomar, 800 Asilomar Ave, Pacific Grove, CA

  Register

  
  

  To register, we prefer you pay online via the black "REGISTER" button. But you may mail the coupon and a check by snail mail.  After you register you will receive information about reserving room and meals with the PBK group. For registration or logistics matters, please contact Barry Haskell at bghaskell@comcast.net. Registration is $150 (member and guests rate), 180 Non-PBKNCA, which goes in part to scholarships.  (Remember, to be part of the PBKNCA package, do not reserve directly with the facility - wait for the information from Barry.) 

  A preview of 2025 Speakers includes the following. More will be listed on the website later. For more information, contact Deirdre Frontczak, (707) 546-4238, dfrontczak@scu.edu.

  “Education is the most powerful weapon we have to change the world.” – Nelson Mandela
  

  Some of you may feel ready for new beginnings.  Some may be eager to expand your learning into unexplored ground.  Some of you may just be eager for a chance to hang with friends in a beautiful,  refreshing and historic coastal retreat.  And for some of you, all three apply.  Thankfully, we are looking forward to a new season for the PBKNCA Asilomar Conference in February!  It is again time to reserve your space for a weekend of learning, inspiration, fellowship and a breath of sanity, on the magnificent Monterey coast. Come, bring a friend, and find out for yourself. 
  

  If you have questions on this year’s program, please contact dfrontczak@scu.edu. For registration or logistics matters, please contact Barry Haskell at bghaskell@comcast.net. Registration is $125, which goes mainly to scholarships. Cost will be similar to last year, about $550 per person, double occupancy, and includes all nine meals and parking. All registered participants will receive forms to reserve their Asilomar accommodations, including meals; please check your email. (Remember, to be part of the PBKNCA package, do not reserve directly with the facility.)
  

  Please join us once again for the annual Asilomar Conference -- to learn, engage in discussions, and to listen to one another in new ways.
  

  Friday night: Brian Soucek, J.D., Ph.D., PBK, U.C. Davis

  The Opinionated University 

  

  Institutional neutrality is sweeping the country. The idea that universities should stay neutral on political or social issues has taken hold at schools from UCLA to Harvard, Michigan to Texas. But neutrality is a mirage. Calls for institutional neutrality are just a distraction from important questions about what those institutions choose to value.  Universities take political and social stands not just in what they say, but even more importantly, in what they do. Their choices, for example, about whether or how to promote diversity, or how sharply to limit protest, are every bit as expressive of their institutional values as the statements that have received so much recent attention. These choices are unavoidable. They are at the center of the leading academic freedom and free speech controversies of the present moment. And they ultimately turn on, and help define, what a university sees its mission to be—a question to which no answer counts as neutral.

  Brian Soucek is Professor of Law and Chancellor’s Fellow at UC Davis School of Law. A PBK graduate of Boston College, he went on to get his Ph.D. in the philosophy of art at Columbia University and his J.D. at Yale Law School. Between those degrees, he taught for three years at the University of Chicago, where he was Co-Chair of the Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts.

  Professor Soucek’s research, which spans anti-discrimination and free speech law to work at the intersection of law and aesthetics, has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court, honored with the Dukeminier Award from UCLA’s Williams Institute for the year’s best article on sexual orientation and gender identity law, and discussed in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and The Atlantic. Professor Soucek is a member of the AAUP’s “Committee A” on Academic Freedom and Tenure. He recently chaired the University of California’s system-wide Committee on Academic Freedom. And his book The Opinionated University: Academic Freedom, Diversity, and the Myth of Neutrality in American Higher Education, will be published by the University of Chicago Press in 2025.

   

  Saturday morning: Tim Bowman, PBK, The Work Innovation Lab

  Cracking the Collaboration Code

  

  Current studies of knowledge workers report that 40% are not fully invested in, or committed to their work – ­Why is that? Recent developments in the technology used at work, while well intentioned, have served to disconnect people from work as a source of joy and meaning in life, leaving many people feeling frustrated and purposeless. Asana was founded to address this challenge:  its mission is to help humanity thrive by enabling the world's teams to work together effortlessly.

  In this talk Tim Bowman, Head of Market Strategy and Researcher in Asana's Work Innovation Lab, explores recent discoveries about why collaboration and teamwork are so broken. Drawing from research across thousands of organizations undertaken in the past 5 years, Tim will discuss the findings of the Innovation Lab, and the challenges companies face in re-engaging and re-inspiring employees who may feel disconnected from their colleagues and impact on the world   And, he will share insights and strategies, published in the Harvard Business Review, designed to optimize collaboration, innovation, and happiness. 

  Tim Bowman is a creative problem solver and storyteller with a diverse background that spans strategy, operations, research, and marketing. With expertise in competitive analysis, crafting compelling narratives, and enabling teams to achieve their most ambitious goals, Tim has made significant contributions to Asana, its customers, and the science of collaboration during his five-year tenure where he currently serves as the Head of Market Strategy. Before Asana, Tim spent a decade advising prominent clients, including Microsoft and T-Mobile, on digital transformation strategies that empower employees and optimize operations. Recognized as a Rising Star of the Profession by Consulting Magazine, Tim brings a unique blend of strategic insights and practical expertise that help teams work better together and exceed their potential.

  Tim was inducted into PBK in 2003 at Boston University, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude in Physics & Math. His insights have been published in the Harvard Business Review (“How to Fix Collaboration Overload,” 2022) and shared in numerous conferences and presentations.

  
  

  Saturday afternoon: Julio Gutierrez, J.D. Tu Brujula Legal, P.C. (“Your Legal Compass")

  An Immigrant’s Journey

  

  The common thread that binds U.S. Citizens and undocumented Immigrants is that at some point, whether lawfully or unlawfully, some member of all our families arrived at the US border.  In recent years, many completed a ruthless crossing of almost unsurvivably hot deserts, dangerous terrain, and predators who seek out the most vulnerable.  Many never make it.  Those who do face an arduous uphill battle, in the hope of achieving something worth living for. 

  I come from the Zapotec region of Oaxaca, Mexico and was four years old when I was brought to the US. My 3-decade struggles to obtain work – for which I was trained and qualified -- informs my current work as an immigration attorney, and that path through which I achieved it.   But it is also the story of tens of thousands of others who have not yet been so fortunate.  And it is an exploration of how we, as “lawful” Americans, can work to ensure those still on the path can cross safely to another side

  Julio Gutierrez Morales is the founder of Tu Brujula Legal, PC, an immigration law firm based in Sonoma County.  Launched in 2024, the firm focuses on Investor Visas and the more frequently sought areas of Removal/Deportation Defense, Affirmative Action cases, and Post-conviction Relief.  Julio received his law degree from Empire College of Law (2022). Prior to opening his firm Julio served as staff attorney for VIDAS Legal, a nonprofit with in Sonoma and Contra Costa counties; he is active with the Immigrant Resources Legal Center (ILRC), and serves on the board of California River Watch. In 2024, he received the North Bay Business Journal Diversity in Business Award.   Outside work Julio is an accomplished musician; his album Luna released in 2023, features Latin jazz / rock /bolero music, with 11 songs about life as an undocumented immigrant.  A new album, Maya, will be released soon.

  
  
  

  Saturday night: Douglas E. Christie, Ph.D. PBK Visiting Scholar for 2025;

  Loyola Marymount University

  Thinking Like A Mountain: Contemplative Ecology In The Anthropocene

  

  The pioneering environmental thinker Aldo Leopold once asked: can we learn to “think like a mountain?” That is, can we learn to recenter our thinking, our ethics, our spiritual practice—beyond our own narrow concerns and within, rather than above or apart from, the living world?
  

  In this moment of global climate change, we are returning this question with a new sense of urgency, asking ourselves what it will mean for us to relinquish control and learn to live with greater regard for the natural world. This lecture will consider what it will mean for us to cultivate an eco-centric, contemplative spiritual practice in the Anthropocene era.
  

  Douglas E. Christie is Professor Emeritus in the Theological Studies Department at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. He is the author of The Word in The Desert: Scripture and the Quest for Holiness in Early Christian Monasticism (Oxford, 1993), The Blue Sapphire of the Mind: Note for a Contemplative Ecology (Oxford, 2012), and The Insurmountable Darkness of Love: Mysticism, Loss and the Common Life (Oxford, 2022). He has been awarded fellowships from the Luce Foundation, the Lilly Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. From 2013-2015 he served as Co-director of the Casa de la Mateada study abroad program in Córdoba, Argentina, a program rooted in the Jesuit vision of education for solidarity. He lives with his family in Los Angeles and is currently working on a book about the desert as spiritual landscape.

  
  

  Sunday morning: Rebecca Jensen-Clem, Ph.D.; U.C. Santa Cruz
  
  Exoplanet Imaging with Extremely Large Telescopes 

  

  Fifty-five years ago, 600 million people watched the Apollo 11 astronauts take the first human steps on another world. In 1969, the number of worlds worth walking on was small: just the few dozen planets and moons that make up the Earth’s siblings orbiting the Sun. Today, astronomers know that our galaxy is teeming with planets, more numerous than the stars themselves. However, detecting signs of life, or “biosignatures,” on another world requires separating the light of the planet from that of its sun and dispersing that planet’s light into a spectrum -- a technique called "direct imaging and spectroscopy". So far, only extremely young, massive worlds have been directly imaged, while older, smaller objects like the Earth remain hidden in the glare of their suns. In this talk, I will describe a variety of avenues for advancing the state-of-the-art in exoplanet imaging, taking advantage of diverse tools ranging from computer simulations, to laboratory demonstrations, to observations at the world's largest telescopes. 
  
  Rebecca Jensen-Clem is an associate professor of Astronomy & Astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz and the Director of the Center for Adaptive Optics. She started her career in astronomy with a 6-inch backyard telescope in Kirkland, Washington, and today uses the world's largest telescopes to hunt for planets outside of our Solar System. She develops new tools and technologies to compensate for atmospheric turbulence and reveal faint planets orbiting nearby stars.  In 2012 she completed her B.S. degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and in 2017 received her doctorate in astrophysics from Cal Tech.

  
  

  Sunday afternoon: Seth Zupanc, Ph.D. Cand., PBKNCA Scholarship Awardee
  
  The Power and Perils of Computational Linguistics in Medicine

  

  Computational linguistics—an interdisciplinary field at the intersection of computer science, artificial intelligence (AI), and linguistics—seeks to understand language from a quantitative perspective. Advances in computational linguistics have been a driving force behind some of the most disruptive innovations in AI, such as large language models like ChatGPT. In this talk, Seth will discuss the application of computational linguistics to two of the most humanistic fields within medicine: palliative care and psychotherapy. First, Seth will highlight how natural language processing has been used in palliative care research to more accurately and efficiently capture outcomes salient to individuals’ experiences of serious or terminal illness. Then, using psychotherapy chatbots as an illustrative example, Seth will discuss some of the ethical and moral considerations regarding the use of generative AI in clinical care.

  Seth Zupanc is a second-year medical student at UCSF. In 2019, they graduated from Wellesley College with a major in economics and a minor in mathematics. Before starting medical school, Seth was awarded a Watson Fellowship, which allowed them to explore approaches to palliative and serious illness care in seven countries around the world. They also worked as a palliative care research manager at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Seth’s interests lie in psychiatry, psychoanalysis, and palliative care; they hold both curiosity and concern about how advances in artificial intelligence will impact clinical care. Outside of medical school, Seth volunteers as a transgender peer counselor and enjoys going for walks. Professors have noted that Seth is "passionate and knowledgeable across a broad range of issues" and is a "rare combination of prolific researcher and compassionate physician." In 2024, Seth was awarded a Phi Beta Kappa Graduate Scholarship.
  
  

  Sunday night: Franklin Utchen, DVM. University of Illinois: D.V.M. PBK
  
  The Fountain of Woof

  

  We all know someone who considers themselves to be a "dog parent”.  With 97% of owners viewing their pets like family members, how do we ensure our canine companions are living their best life for as long as they can? Dr. Franklin Utchen will delve into the field of biogerontology (the science of aging) as it applies to our dogs, presenting practical strategies for enhancing the health and lifespan of our canine companions. Drawing on his personal experience as a veterinarian with 38 years of daily practice and the extensive knowledge detailed in his book, The Fountain of Woof, his discussion will cover cutting-edge findings from research on aging and give you the information you need to help your dog stay healthy and by your side for many more memorable years. 

  Originally from the greater Chicago area, Dr. Utchen was inducted to PBK at the University of Illinois in 1982, graduating with honors in Biology.  In 1986 he completed his D.V.M. at the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine. He currently mentors young veterinarians, and enjoys backpacking, playing guitar, and spending time with his wife and daughters.
  
  

  Monday Morning: Esther Yu, Ph.D., Stanford University; PBKNCA Teaching Excellence Awardee

  Early Modern Literature and the Modern University 

  

  You’ve seen versions of this headline before: “There’s a Very Good Reason College Students Don’t Read Anymore,” a New York Times op-ed recently declared. This talk approaches the oft-heralded decline of humanistic inquiry from another angle. Why, it asks, do students in the Silicon Valley—of all the other routes of inquiry available to them—continue to read? Why, moreover, do they choose to read English works from the early modern period, that span of time stretching between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries? This talk opens up such questions (and further invites your own) by charting a momentous, early modern shift in constructions of the conscience.

  Esther Yu is an assistant professor in the Department of English at Stanford University, and a recipient of the PBKNCA Teaching Excellence Award (2023). Her book in progress, Experiencing the Novel: The Genre of Tender Conscience, reconsiders the rise of the early British novel, the English Revolution, and the emergence of modern liberalism.

  Professor Yu completed her B.A. at Stanford University (PBK), and received her Ph.D. from U.C. Berkeley.  In 2023 she received a Teaching Excellence Award from Phi Beta Kappa of Northern California.

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