FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Nov. 19, 2004
Contact: Shirley Melikian Armbruster
(559) 278-2795 or (559) 593-1815

Fresno State to Host National Forum Addressing ‘Truth’ Issues Feb. 15-17

Scholars from Yale, Duke and Oxford universities will visit Fresno State next February to participate in a national forum featuring public discussions of the relationships between faith, truth and the pursuit of knowledge.

Called the Veritas Forum, the event is scheduled for Feb. 15-17, 2005, and will include three days of meetings, lectures, debates and discussions among invited speakers, students and faculty.

Speakers will include Os Guinness, an Oxford scholar serving as a senior fellow at the Trinity Forum in McLean, Va; and David Miller, assistant professor of business ethics at Yale University.

Also participating will be Lillian Calles Barger, author of the book “Eve’s Revenge: Women and a Spirituality of the Body;” Austin Dacey, director of research and education at the Center for Inquiry based in Amherst, N.Y., and executive editor of the journal, Philo; and William Lane Craig, research professor of philosophy at the Talbot School of Theology in La Mirada.

The Veritas Forum was founded in 1992 by a group of graduate students at Harvard University who sought to bring their hardest questions about life and truth before the campus community.

Now a national organization, the Veritas Forum has spread to more than 50 universities across the United States, engaging more than 200,000 students, faculty and community members.

Using the model established at Harvard, the forum invites speakers and students to pose their most difficult questions about life in light of the truth claims of Jesus Christ. Answers are considered not only in the context of the Christian faith, but also other worldviews such as Islam, Buddhism, and secular humanism.

The long-term goal of the forum is to spark serious dialogue about important issues among campus community members with different worldviews.

Discussion topics at the Fresno State forum will include environmental ethics, women’s issues, faith in the workplace, art, music, the nature of “truth” and the existence of God.

Invited speakers will address large groups and also will take part in debates, give class lectures and lead small-group discussions.

In recent years in California, Veritas Forums have been held at UCLA, UC Berkeley, Stanford and UC Santa Barbara. Faculty will be encouraged to have their students attend one or more of the sessions applicable to their subject area.

For more information on the Veritas Forum, visit the national organization Web site at www.veritas.org or the Fresno State site at www.fresnoveritas.com, or contact professor Hank Delcore at (559) 278-2784 or hdelcore@csufresno.edu.

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