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IMH Happenings

7/24/2006
Teachers participate in prestigious Oxford Round Table

By EMILY TARAVELLA, The Daily Sentinel

Saturday, July 22, 2006

Goethe said, “Science and art belong to the whole world, and before them vanish the barriers of nationality."

Those words were embodied at the Oxford Round Table in England, where two local art instructors recently participated in an intellectual debate about the relationship between the two disciplines.

Jo Carlson and Robbie Roach live in Nacogdoches, teach at Angelina College, and recently returned from Harris Manchester College, where they participated in the Oxford Round Table.

The Oxford Round Table convened for the first time in August 1989 to consider major issues in educational policy in the United States, the United Kingdom and elsewhere.

Participants are chosen through a screening process that includes recommendations from previous participants, recommendations from round-table directors from recognized presentations and awards of state and national organizations and by invitations to an individual from a successful university or school district.

"The foundation of the success of the round table is the assurance that this learning community will be composed of outstanding educational leaders," the Oxford Round Table Web site states. "The colleges, with their beautiful medieval dining halls, chapels and libraries provide a most agreeable venue for relaxed exchange of ideas and opinions."

Carlson and Roach couldn't agree more.

"It was such an honor to participate in this, and it was so stimulating," Roach said.

Carlson said the beauty of the location added to the atmosphere of inspiration.

The purpose of this meeting of the minds was to continue a discussion that started in 1957, when a man by the name of C.P. Snow raised an important question about why professionals and scholars from the fields of science and the humanities do not communicate with one another.

"It caused quite a controversy, at the time," Carlson said. With a knowing smile cast toward her colleague, Roach, she said. "The argument is still going on today."

Carlson is especially interested in this topic, because she is an artist married to a physicist. In addition to being a scientist, her husband, Dr. Robert Gruebel, studies primitive art.

"He understands my language, but I don't understand his," she said. "I feel like I can explain art to anyone in words they can understand. But layman's terms don't come easily to scientists."

Carlson's presentation to those gathered at the round table was titled "Same Song, New Verse," and expanded on the work done by Snow, who himself had a passion for both art and science.

Roach's presentation revolved around two living artists who use science in their work quite effectively: June Wayne and Dr. Eric Avery.

June Wayne revived lithography in the West, Roach said. She is now in her 80s, and her art is clearly influenced by space science and the cosmos.

Avery, a psychiatrist at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, works with clients who have HIV and Hepatitis C.

"He uses his art to speak to his patients," Roach said. "It is a teaching tool to help them understand what happens to them during treatment."

The art is not only therapeutic for the patients, it's therapeutic for the artist, Roach said, adding that Avery's work is now being used in the Texas prison system.

"My viewpoint is somewhat Utopian," Roach said. "But I really hope to see a growing connection between the humanities and science."

The round-table discussions were animated and impassioned, Carlson and Roach said. The discreet meeting of the minds took place behind closed doors with little fanfare, they said.

Many of the participants brought guests, and most of those guests spent their days touring England.

Instead of touring, Carlson's husband chose to sit quietly in a chair listening to the exchange of ideas – at times biting his tongue, because guests were not invited to give input.

One scientist at the table asked the artists in the group to "define art."

Roach said defining art would be like killing a butterfly to get a better understanding of how it flies.

"Art is slippery and indefinable," she said. "It changes with the times."

The artists asked the scientists at the round table if they ever consider things such as emotion or subjectivity, in their work.

"I have always strived to balance my right brain and my left brain," Roach said. "I try to take that to the classroom, and at times I've been criticized for doing so. After these discussions, I have a new passion and conviction about helping my students learn this other language."

Roach said science has learned that the left brain "talks" to the right brain, what remains to be discovered is how that happens.

As far as Robbie Roach is concerned, the most exciting discovery is the one that leads to more questions.

"When you make a discovery, you open a big door," she said. "Behind that big door are lots of little doors with more questions waiting to be answered."

Roach said her art has been fueled by nature, and she has always had particular interest in botany. She tries, in a variety of ways, to incorporate science into her teaching, she said.

"I send my students who are interested in drawing the human figure to anatomy and physiology classes," she said.

Carlson said the study of pigment and light in art requires an understanding of scientific principles.

The passion and commitment that were displayed at the round table were indicative to Roach and Carlson that the dialog should continue, they said.

"The goal of these discussions is to influence policy trends," Roach said. "The Oxford Round Table discussions reveal some of the latest thinking and trends in academia and the professional world. "

Roach and Carlson said another valuable part of the experience was meeting great minds from across the United States from the fields of science, theater, music and visual arts.

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