Faculty Commons SLO

We’re excited about this opportunity open to faculty, students, and invited guests:

“What is Success?” A Conversation with Dr. Charles Lee, PhD, Professor of Accounting, Emeritus, Stanford University. UCLA Computer Science Professor, George Varghese will conduct the interview.  Come and hear how Dr. Lee defines success both for academics and professionals, and ask him hard questions.

Tuesday, February 15th, 6:30 – 7:30 pm Pacific Time via the Zoom platform

The event is free, but advance registration is required:

https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_zsA7VFbnTfu37cQq2wdaJw

Charles M. C. Lee is the Hanson Professor of Accounting at the Foster School of Business, University of Washington.  He is also the Moghadam Family Professor, Emeritus, at the Graduate School of Business (GSB), Stanford University, 2009-2021.  From 2004 to 2008, he was Managing Director at Barclays Global Investors (now Blackrock) where he co-managed over $300 billion in active equity assets.  He has made fundamental contributions to behavioral economics, in particular studying the effect of human cognitive constraints on participants that impact market prices.  He has won many honors for his research, including the Presidential Scholar of the AAA in 2015.  He has won every major teaching award at the Stanford Business School, and is featured as one of 7 professors in the 2021 book “Seven Essentials for Business Success: Lessons from Legendary Professors.”

George Varghese is Chancellor’s Professor of Computer Science at UCLA.  He was inducted into the US National Academy of Engineering in 2017, and into the Internet Hall of Fame in 2022.

This event continues the Science and Faith series sponsored by the Faculty Christian Fellowship at UCLA and Faculty Bridges, who previously hosted speakers such as Stanford neuroscientist Bill Newsome and MIT computer scientist Roz Picard.

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John Lennox, Professor of Mathematics, University of Oxford, will be tackling the question “Is Faith Reasonable?” and explore the discussion of belief in God, reason and faith, and how the Gospel of Jesus Christ still resonates truth in a postmodern world.

Update: this virtual Veritas Forum at the University of Pennsylvania was recorded and is available for viewing (or listening) here.

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The January 22, 2022 virtual “A Common Call” conference is an opportunity for Christian faculty to hear from and discuss with other Christian faculty their common call to both Christ and the academy.

This is an online conference for Christian academics in New England, New York, and faculty in other institutions who would like attend.

Hosted by Faculty Commons (the faculty ministry of Cru) Saturday, January 22 9:00am – 12:30pm EST.

Faculty from Cal Poly and other West Coast campuses are welcome to attend. Please note the three hour time difference: the conference will be 6:00am-9:30am Pacific Time.

From the conference website:

Have you ever said to yourself

• “If only I had the time, I would like to do more as a Christ-follower in the academy.”

• “If only I had the inner strength, I would like to do more as a Christ-follower in the academy.”

• “If only I had the resources, I would like to do more as a Christ-follower in the academy.”

Time, Strength, and Resources – This conference is designed to give you hope in these three areas.

You will hear outstanding Christian professors address their struggles and successes in these three areas, with ample breakout times for discussing your own challenges and breakthroughs with others.

Speakers:

Dr. Rosalind W. Picard is Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at MIT. She is founder and director of the Affective Computing Research Group and co-founder of two successful businesses. She is actively involved with the Christian faculty group at MIT and a frequent speaker for The Veritas Forum and other events sponsored by Christian ministries. She’s been happily married since 1988 to her husband, Len, and she is the mother of three sons. Dr. Picard’s topic will be “Keeping Your Priorities as a Christian Professor.”

Dr. Adegbola (Gbola) Tolulope Adesogan is Professor of Animal Nutrition at the University of Florida. He is also director of the UF Food Systems Institute and the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Livestock Systems. Nigerian- born, Dr. Adesogan went through a period of extreme alcohol consumption and destructive behavior before fully surrendering his life to Christ in college. Now he is known for his gentleness and his faith. He has been a leader of the large Faculty Commons movement at the University of Florida for many years and provides national leadership as a Faculty Commons Fellow. His topic is “The Christian Professor and the Spirit-filled Life.”

Dr. Heather Holleman is Associate Teaching Professor at Penn State University and Schreyer Honors College. She is the author and co-author of several books including “Seated with Christ: Living Freely in a Culture of Comparison” (Moody), “A Grander Story: An Invitation to Christian Professors.” Dr Holleman is on associate staff with Cru; her husband, Ashley, is the director of Cru’s Grad Student Ministry. They have two daughters. Dr Holleman’s topic is “Sent: Living a Life that Invites Others to Jesus,” which is also the title of her most recent book (Moody).

Registration cost – $20 (registration fee can be waived upon request) Registered attendees will receive a free copy of Dr. Holleman’s book, “Sent: Living a Life That Invites Others to Jesus”

Registration and more information can be found here.

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Welcome to Cal Poly. Despite the many challenges of starting virtually last year, or in person this year, it’s our hope that your experience here is both enjoyable and successful. 

It’s our desire to welcome each new faculty member this Fall with a welcome gift bag (please let us know if you haven’t received one yet).

Wishing you all the best – Faculty Commons SLO

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Please join us for a prayer walk at Cal Poly, this Thursday 11/4, at 4pm. Students and faculty will be meeting at the UU Mustang, and then head out to walk the campus and pray in groups of 2-3. A prayer guide will be provided.

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Please join us Saturday October 2nd to hear from others who have honored Christ in their teaching, research, and service to the university campus as we explore with other Christian professors our common call to the university and the world and enjoy the chance to network with colleagues from other university campuses.

October 2, 2021 9am – 11:30am PDT (virtual via Zoom)
A Common Call: A Zoom Conference
Facilitated by Susan Siaw
Sponsored by Faculty Commons

Our time together will include several breakout discussion sessions, and will be facilitated by Dr. Susan Siaw, professor of Psychology at Cal Poly, Pomona (PhD, University of Southern California). This is Dr. Siaw’s 37th year as a psychology professor at Cal Poly Pomona. Over the course of the past 37 years, God has been faithful and patient as she developed from a “bystander participant” in faculty ministry to “hesitant leader” of the faculty ministry on her campus, to “very excited leader” of the ministry on her campus and spokesperson for Faculty Commons.

Please register here. The conference is free to charge, but registration ahead of time is required. A Zoom link will be emailed upon registration.

The meeting room will open at 8:45 am and we will wrap up by 11:30.

We welcome faculty participants throughout the West Coast – and beyond.
Sponsored by Faculty Commons, Portland.

Questions? Sonya.Rygh@cru.org

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G3 groups are groups of 3-4 faculty members meeting for 50 minutes every other week for for community, growth, and prayer. The groups are committed to:

• building community: a chance to share with a few others about life – challenges and opportunities, both on and off campus.

• growing faith: taking time to discuss a passage of Scripture or short article together, and pray for each other.

• living out our faith: why has God called each of us to a public university? What does it mean to live out our faith on campus, with our colleagues and students?

G3’s are open to faculty wherever they are at in their spiritual journey: whether interested in exploring Christianity or growing in their faith.

Six different are meeting Fall Quarter 2021, meeting every other week (starting 2nd week):

Tuesdays 4:10-5pm — in person

Wednesdays 1:10-2pm — via Zoom

Thursdays 8:10-9am — via Zoom  

Thursdays 12:10-1pm — via Zoom 

Fridays 9:10-10am — via Zoom

Fridays 1:10-2pm — in person

Please contact us for specifics if you’d like to be part of a group.

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“Can a practicing scientist also be a Christian?”

featuring UCLA Computer Science faculty Dr. George Varghese and Dr. Harry Xu

Friday August 13, 7pm (Pacific)

Dr. George Varghese (Chancellor’s Professor of Computer Science, UCLA)

Dr. Harry Xu (Associate Professor of Computer Science, UCLA)

With rapid advances in virtually every corner of science, human being’s expectation of what science can produce has never been so high today. As a result, many modern-day people think of Christianity as an ancient religion that is anti-science and/or superstition, and that only people who are old, weak, or without education would believe in. Does Christianity really conflict with modern science? Is it the case that well-educated people do not believe in Christianity?

The presentation will be given in English, and translated by Dr. Xu into Mandarin. This is a great opportunity to also invite Mandarin-speakers to an event that explores the issue of science and faith.

There is no cost, but attendees must register here in order to receive the active link.  


Attendees do not have to be professors, students or academics. The talks will be recorded and posted on YouTube. 



Dr. George Varghese is the Chancellor’s Professor of Computer Science, UCLA)has spent 30 years conducting research on making the Internet faster and more reliable. To recognize his technical contributions, George was elevated to a member of U.S. National Academy of Engineering in 2017 as well as a member of U.S. National Academy of Invention in 2020. He is also a Fellow of Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). He has received a series of recognitions in his career, including Lifetime Achievement Award of ACM SIGCOMM and Kobayashi Award of Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (IEEE). Dr. Varghese gave a talk at Veritas Forum discussion at MIT on Faith and Success titled “What Drives you” in 2014. On 8/13, Dr. Varghese will share his thoughts on science and faith, which will hopefully shed new light on how these two seemingly unrelated areas can be connected.

Dr. Harry Xu is a tenured associate professor in Computer Science department of UCLA. He is leading a team of dozens of researchers working on various problems in computer systems, including artificial intelligence systems, cloud systems, and programming languages. His research has been supported by U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. National Science Foundation, Google, Alibaba, Microsoft. Harry’s team has received various awards from academia and industry, including the 2018 Dahl-Nygaard Junior Prize, which is awarded each year to a junior researcher that has made promising contributions to the field of object orientation. In this talk, Dr. Xu will explain some of the core principles in Christianity in light of recent advances in computer science.

Both professors are members of the Faculty Fellowship at UCLA, which invites a distinguished scientist to discuss science and faith each year. The most recent of these discussions was a talk given by MIT Professor Rosalind Picard in April 2021,  titled “Technology, Emotion and God”, also translated into Chinese by Christian Mission magazine in August 2021.



Please save the date and plan on joining us Sunday Sep 12, 2021 3:30pm – 6pm for our Fall Welcome Back BBQ and Potluck.

After a year and a half of virtual meetings, we’re very excited about the chance to finally meet in person, and look forward to time together.

As always, this is a family event. We’ll have some childcare helpers on hand so parents enjoy some adult interaction.

Please contact us so we can add you to the invitation list and get you more information.

Look forward to seeing you there!

What does it look like for AAPI women to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, strength and mind and to love our neighbor as ourselves?

We will take a comprehensive approach to doing just that this year at our SIH2021 Virtual Event. Our team has worked hard to bring together a phenomenal group of AAPI women leaders who will cover practical and necessary topics to help us grow in holistic health: spiritually, emotionally, generationally, relationally, and communally. This space is carved out to bring us together to validate, encourage, equip and inspire AAPI women in all walks of life. Invite your friends. We look forward to being together June 26th.

Registration and more information can be found here.

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