In late October, the College hosted Cognitive Science Week, featuring lectures by three renowned international scholars, to celebrate the creation of the department of cognitive science.

Merlin Donald, professor in the department of psychology at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, presents his lecture "What We Were, What We Are Becoming: Cognitive Evolution"—one of three talks featured during Cognitive Science Week.

The distinctive focus of this new department, formally established in May 2004, is human creativity. While grounded in the "sciences of the mind"— neurobiology, neuroscience, psychology, and linguistics—its research interests will extend across the social sciences, the humanities, and the arts.

As Dean Mark Turner observed in announcing Cognitive Science Week, "The creative activity of the human mind is at the center of art, music and religion, of science and technology, of personal and social interaction, of education and politics. In each of these domains, one can trace the operations of the mind in creating concepts, artifacts, and institutions."

Accordingly, faculty from across the university will hold secondary appointments in the new department, and its research and educational programs will involve collaborations with affiliated institutions such as the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Cleveland Institute of Art, and the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Cognitive Science Week was co-sponsored by the departments of philosophy and cognitive science. For more information on the new department and announcements of future lectures, visit www.case.edu/artsci/dean/cogsci/.