Founded in 1979, the UCSC Emeriti Association aims to foster an atmosphere of collegiality among emeriti by providing socially and intellectually stimulating programs. Currently, the Emeriti Association promotes better understanding of the university’s research, teaching, and service mission through community-wide lectures, the Panunzio and Dickson awards, and public videos of its programs and lectures, documenting the value of emeriti research, scholarly activities, and service performed in retirement. The Emeriti Association also advocates for emeriti rights, welfare, status, and benefits, coordinating with the Council of University of California Emeriti Associations (CUCEA), the Chancellor, the UC Santa Cruz Academic Senate Committee on Emeriti Relations, and the Retiree & Emeriti Center.
Miriam and Ed Landesman have established an endowment to support the UCSC Emeriti Association. One purpose of the endowment is to establish a fund to which others can contribute. The number of emeriti continues to grow, as will our need for financial support. Your donation will be added to our endowment and thus will provide long-term support for emeriti. We appreciate donations to support these goals. Our funds are used for our luncheons, lectures, and communication with our far-flung emeriti community.
In addition, there is the History of Science fund in honor of Michael Nauenberg, which supports a yearly lecture. Last year the very successful inaugural lecture was held with Professor Jed Buchwald of Caltech, entitled "Isaac Newton and the Origin of Civilization." Contributions to this fund could allow yearly talks from the top scholars in the field of the history of science.
Emeriti Association Lectures
Nauenberg History of Science Lecture Series
The Nauenberg History of Science Lecture was established in honor of Michael Nauenberg, a founding faculty member in the Physics Department at UCSC who came to the campus in 1966. During his distinguished academic career, he contributed to a remarkably broad range of fields, including particle physics, condensed matter physics, astrophysics, chaos theory, fluid dynamics, and the history of physics in the 17th–18th centuries.
Among Professor Nauenberg’s passions, he deeply believed in the importance of interdisciplinary scholarship connecting the sciences with the humanities. Following his retirement in 1994, he pursued his long-standing interests in the history of science, writing books and articles about Joseph Banks, Robert Hooke, Christiaan Huygens, and Isaac Newton. In 2013, he became the only scientist to receive the University of California Panunzio Distinguished Emeriti Award, an honor normally given to professors in the humanities and social sciences. When Professor Nauenberg passed away in 2019, the UCSC Emeriti Association and the Nauenberg family established a History of Science Lecture series in the spirit of his 1999 proposal.
