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The Office for Public and Community-Engaged Scholarship (PACES) is pleased to announce that Associate Professor Benjamin Teitelbaum will serve as the new faculty director for strategic events and public discourse.����

Teitelbaum’s role will first focus primarily on planning the Conference on World Affairs (CWA) alongside members of Strategic Relations and Communications (SRC) and committees of volunteers responsible for developing the conference’s programs.����

Read on to learn more about Teitelbaum, what we can expect from CWA 2026 and how you can be involved.����

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What are the responsibilities of the Faculty Director for Strategic Events and Public Discourse?����

My job is to provide a voice for faculty and to contribute to the intellectual profile of a series of public-facing events on campus, first and foremost the (CWA).����

How is this role an extension of your scholarship?��

I am an ethnographer of culture and politics, which is to say that I study political ideas and expressions through face-to-face observations and conversations. During my career this brought me into contact both with a range of politicians and strategists, as well as writers, artists, and musicians who play (I came to think) a much larger role in shaping our political life than they are often given credit for.����

Because the work I do ended up not fitting neatly into any academic discipline, and because much of it commented on current events, a lot of my writing appears in public rather than academic forums. CWA embodies much about the way I’ve gone about my work, in other words: it seeks to understand our world by bringing a diverse range of voices into dialogue with each other and the public.�� ��

What can our campus community look forward to for CWA 2026?��

Though our planning is still in progress, I think you should expect two broad changes: the first is that I want the conference to be built to a greater extent by input from ��ƷSM����ӰƬ faculty. We have an exceptional concentration of expertise and insight in our midst, and I think we can do a better job of mobilizing it for the conference. That’s my priority.����

Second, I want us to increase the diversity of our speakers. And I mean “diversity” in all ways: politically, socially, disciplinarily, etc. Part of the story of politics and culture during the past 10 years or so has been the exploding or transformation of establishments. To me, this means that any effort to understand how we got here, and where we might be going, needs to pay more attention to voices at the margins—people who we might have dismissed as irrelevant yesterday, but who could find themselves in positions of exceptional power or insight today.����

How can faculty members, staff members and students be involved in CWA?��

The best way to get involved is to join one of our six programming subcommittees (Arts, Business, Politics and Media, International Affairs, Human Condition, and Science and Technology). Joining will give you a direct role with identifying topics and speakers to feature at the conference.����

Students can also volunteer during the conference itself, such as by being an on-campus guide for visitors.����

But I especially want to add that even faculty who can’t volunteer can still submit recommendations for guest speakers.����

Volunteer at CWA | Nominate a speaker for CWA

Why is it important for our campus community members to participate in public and community-engaged scholarship?����

Part of the motivation could be purely selfish—you will learn more about the things you are studying and care about if you open yourself up to the ideas, experiences and wisdom of more people. Some scholars or professionals are used to doing that within their professional networks, but there is more to be gained by expanding. Another motivation comes from responsibility: the public, in various ways, supports our work and research, and one hopes that our aspirations in some way align with those of our wider community. For that reason, I think we ought to consider enhanced communication, and even collaboration and coordination, with the public impacted by our work.����

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Consider getting involved with CWA in the planning stages or during conference week. You can submit ideas for topics and speakers, request a classroom visit, volunteer on a program committee and more.��������

Learn more about the Office for Public and Community-Engaged Scholarship and how it supports the work of ��ƷSM����ӰƬ faculty, staff and students.������