A look at the history of the Oregon Nobel Laureate Symposium
There was a time in the 1980s and ’90s when Linfield regularly hosted some of the highest-profile speakers on the planet. Pictures from the Linfield Archives Photograph Collection show former U.S. Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, as well as former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, among others.
The biggest reason behind the recognizable names was a 1986 decision to launch an ambitious and first-of-its-kind event at Linfield: the Oregon Nobel Laureate Symposium.
The symposium had an up and down history and was on hiatus for the past 10 years. On Feb. 23-24, 2023, it returned and welcomed physics Nobel laureates William Phillips and David Wineland to speak over two days.
As Linfield looks back on its first symposium in a decade, it’s worth looking at how it all began.
Before the Oregon Nobel Laureate Symposium was an idea, Bill Apel – then campus chaplain and religious studies professor – coordinated smaller events focused on the theme of world peace. Linfield hosted a variety of lectures, workshops and panel discussions in 1984 and 1985, each featuring a winner of the Nobel Prize.
Apel recalled Linfield President Charles Walker approaching him after the first two events and asking if he would lead a more formal Nobel laureate symposium. Apel founded a conference committee, which included Ethel Jensen, a volunteer with previous experience organizing large conferences. Jensen served as the co-chair of the inaugural event in 1986.
That first symposium was modeled after the previous peace conferences – only bigger. The goals were lofty: host multiple Nobel laureates over a number of days with dozens of events, roundtables, speeches, formal and informal discussions, banquets and workshops. Funding came from an anonymous donor, as well as a $20,000 grant from The Collins Foundation. The private support was used to create an endowed fund to help the event live on in perpetuity.
Before starting, though, Linfield needed to secure permission to use the Nobel name. President Walker wrote to Stig Ramel, the executive director of the Nobel Foundation, asking to use the name. The Foundation was initially hesitant to allow use of the Nobel name and set clear parameters about how Linfield could structure and name its conference, which in the planning stages was meant to be called, “The Nobel Lectures.” The Foundation nixed the word “lectures,” however, which is how it came to be called a symposium. At the time, only four similar Nobel conferences reportedly existed in the world: one each in Italy, West Germany, Chicago and at Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota.
For the first event, the committee of faculty, staff, students and community members pulled together an enviable group of speakers: Linus Pauling, recipient of the 1954 chemistry and 1962 peace prizes; Lawrence Klein, a 1980 economics recipient; Czeslaw Milosz, recipient of the 1980 literature prize; and Charles Townes, who earned the 1964 physics prize. Pauling, a Portland native and 1922 graduate of Oregon State University, is the only individual in history to win two unshared Nobel Prizes. He was the headliner of the Nobel group but perhaps not of the event, since Linfield also secured a visit from Yolanda King, the eldest daughter of 1964 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Martin Luther King Jr.
The theme of the first event was “Rethinking Our Human Environment For the 21st Century.” More than 40 events were held, all free and many open to the public. Following the event, Linfield released an abridged version of the major speeches of the event, including Townes’ words:
“Education for the future is education rooted in human values and in understanding human nature. It must be broad learning, not narrow. Our dilemma is that science and technology changes much more rapidly than human nature changes.”
By all accounts, the inaugural event was a huge success. Future symposia brought laureates such as Oscar Arias, Mairead Corrigan Maguire, Leon Lederman, Franco Modigliani and, perhaps most notably, writer and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel.
But the challenges to prolonged success quickly became apparent. Many people at Linfield had gone above and beyond in order for the first event to succeed, and replicating that effort annually proved to be difficult. There was also a supply issue, as there are a limited number of Nobel laureates in the world. Funding was increasingly a concern even with the endowed fund, as speaker costs grew over the years.
As the first event concluded, the format and schedule for future events was already being reconsidered.
In the end, Apel led six yearly events from 1986-1991, featuring 12 total laureates. After 1991, it ceased being an annual event, with symposia held in 1995, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2005, 2011 and 2013. Of those events, only 1998 featured more than a single laureate.
With the opening of the new Linfield University Science Complex in early 2023, it seemed to be an apt time for the university to reintroduce the event with laureates from the world of science. The crowds present for the 2023 symposium, including a large audience for Phillips’ keynote lecture, indicate that the community agreed. This year’s symposium committee hopes to use this momentum to make sure this premier event continues as a place where the greatest minds and eager students meet for years to come.