Interview with Arthur W. Galston - Caltech Oral Histories

Galston–20COHEN: Was there any interaction with other divisions—while you had, of course, your ownpersonal interaction with Feynman in physics and Pauling in chemistry? Any other divisions thatinteracted? Did you eat at the Round Table? Was there such a thing in those days?GALSTON: At the Athenaeum? Oh, yes, frequently. I mean, as an individual, I was verygregarious and interdisciplinary—I always have been. I loved eating with the geochemists. Bob[Robert P.] Sharp [chairman of the Geology Division, 1952-1968]. Of course, there was BenoGutenberg, and [Charles F.] Richter. And Sam Epstein, who came when I was there. Yes, Iinteracted with some of those people—conversationally, at an Athenaeum table.COHEN: So it was a social interaction.GALSTON: I very much enjoyed the Athenaeum. That was a great institution.COHEN: So you would go there for lunch?GALSTON: Frequently—not every day.COHEN: I think the biologists now have a reputation for brown-bagging in their offices with theirstudents and not being seen.GALSTON: Well, that’s what happened. When I was there, that tendency started, but I alwaysliked to reach out. I’m a very interdisciplinary-minded person. This bioethics program that Ihave sparked occurs in an interdisciplinary think tank. We’re called the Institution for Social andPolicy Studies and there are people there from medicine, law, forestry, divinity, biology,economics, political science—you name it, it’s there. I’ve really enjoyed the interdisciplinarynature of it.I’ve been teaching ever since my retirement here. I teach a college seminar. Here atYale, we have twelve residential colleges. We don’t call them dorms—they’re residentialcolleges. Each one has a master and a group of fellows, and I’m a fellow at one of thecolleges—Timothy Dwight College. I’ve been offering a course in bioethics there every year.It’s a regular Yale college course; it gives credit. They were established by a gift from Paulhttp://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechOH:OH_Galston_A