Sevin Fellowship returns to West Campus

By Ben Badua, Creative Content Manager

For Brown University physics professor, author and jazz musician Stephon Alexander, creativity, practice and the mistakes that inevitably come with them, are just part of the process. 

“The way I teach my students how to become better physicists is the same way my jazz teachers trained me,” said Alexander at the West Campus House System Sevin Lecture on Mar. 5 at Hans Bethe House. “Even if they just go up there and make something up, the goal is to get them comfortable enough to go to the blackboard and make a mistake. The point is to make the mistake.” 

Created in 2006 in honor of Professor Milton Konvitz and made possible by the generosity of Irik Sevin ’69, the Sevin Fellowship brings a distinguished figure in American public life to West Campus to engage and share insights with current residents.  

Titled “The Jazz of Physics: Improvisation as Research,” and moderated by Steven Strogatz, the Susan and Barton Winokur Distinguished Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and Mathematics, this year’s Sevin lecture explored the parallels between the improvisational nature of jazz performance and the process of scientific discovery. Alexander also touched on a range of topics, including the role of creativity in the sciences, his inspirations and challenges, and the importance of exploring new ideas. 

"If the motivation is to be creative, then it doesn’t matter [if you make mistakes]. It’s more about exploring and playing with the idea,” said Alexander. “But then of course, to do that better, you’re going to have to learn.” 

Since its inception, West Campus has been charged with bringing students and faculty together in the spirit of inquiry and active citizenship. The five houses of West Campus – Alice Cook House, Carl Becker House, Hans Bethe House, William Keeton House and Flora Rose House – are named after distinguished Cornell faculty and are overseen by a House Professor-Dean, who is a tenured faculty member that helps guide and direct the House’s educational program. 

An extension of the residential experience first-year students share on North Campus, West Campus offers upper-level students the opportunity to interact with live-in faculty members and house fellows from across Cornell and the Ithaca community while engaging in programming that prioritizes active citizenship, cultural learning, intellectual inquiry and health and wellbeing. The Sevin Fellowship and lecture is just one of several ways West Campus has worked to promote an intentional living-learning environment. 

“West Campus seeks to build connections among students, faculty and staff beyond the classroom and individual departments or majors," said Andrew Hicks, associate professor of music, classics and medieval studies and the Dale R. Corson House Professor-Dean for Hans Bethe. “It’s also a chance for faculty to recognize that the classroom experience and the residential experience collectively contribute to the Cornell experience.” 

Rotating between West Campus’ five houses on a yearly basis, Sevin Fellows are invited to visit for three to five days. While staying in the receiving house, fellows work with House Professor-Deans to develop workshops, lectures and other opportunities to connect and interact with house residents and the larger Cornell community. 

“While not everybody in the house is going to have the same interests, [West Campus] provides us opportunities to delve into new topics,” said Amanda Kamenetsky ’27, a public health major and Hans Bethe House resident. “At the beginning of the semester I was in a public policy class and the professor walked in and she’s actually a live-in professor at Flora Rose, so this environment definitely makes faculty more approachable and accessible, and when you attend some of their talks it opens up a new way to make connections and form relationships.” 

Residing in Hans Bethe from Mar. 2-7, Alexander also participated in several interactive lectures and discussions on West Campus and across Cornell, which included a conversation examining the work of American jazz musician and composer Alice Coltrane alongside Ambre Dromgoole, assistant professor of Africana religions and music; a performance with members of CU Jazz+ and Paul Merrill, the Herbert Gussman Associate Professor of the Practice and Director of Jazz; an astrophysics seminar organized by the physics department; and an astronomy and space sciences colloquium hosted by the astronomy department.  

“Alexander’s Sevin residency represents the interdisciplinary collaborations and conversations that West Campus encourages, said Hicks. "Over meals, jam sessions, technical lectures and informal conversations, students and faculty came together across departments, engaging the improvisational nature of our collective enterprise to advance understanding of big questions, and to play – and yes, make some mistakes – along the way.”

For more information about the West Campus Housing System visit: westcampushousesystem.cornell.edu