What makes life worth living?

For millennia, scholars — from Socrates to Dr. Phil — have been pondering that very question. And, as it’s the premise for LSA's theme semester, so will the LSA community in the upcoming months.

This semester, hundreds of classes, lectures, discussions, films and other events throughout several departments across the college will focus on this central question.

Prof. John Chamberlin, director of the Center for Ethics in Public Life, and Prof. Chris Peterson, director of the Michigan Center for Positive Psychology, came up with the idea for the semester’s theme and are the co-organizers of the theme semester.

In separate telephone interviews last week, both Chamberlin and Peterson said they hope students take advantage of the semester’s theme because college is one of the few times when people have the freedom and resources at their disposal to think legitimately about what matters in their lives.

“What we’re really hoping for is, simply, to raise the question,” Peterson said.

“Ultimately, (everyone) has to answer that question for themselves,” he continued. “There’s probably a huge variety of answers, but you’re not going to have an answer unless you engage the question. Our goal … is to raise the question, to legitimize discussion of it, because if you can’t do it on a university campus, where are you going to raise that question? Where are you going to discuss it in an open way?”

The co-organizers added that at the University today, students are often more worried about preparing for future careers than they are about learning for learning’s sake. Chamberlin and Peterson both said they hope the theme semester will help change this mindset.

“In these economic times, students are especially concerned about, ‘How am I going to prepare for a career?’ and sometimes that takes them towards pre-professional thinking and, perhaps, away from a general question of what makes life worth living,” Peterson said. “I think in the modern university, disciplinary specialization increasingly leaves attention to these questions to others.”

Peterson used a metaphor to describe the focus on pre-professional tracks.

“It’s easy to miss the forest for the trees,” he said. “The forest is what makes life worth living. Why are we trying to get good grades? Why are we trying to get jobs? We just want to have a discussion going, and I think it’s starting.”

Most of the theme semester events, Peterson said, are being organized by other departments and are just being co-sponsored by the theme semester. This means there will be a wide array of events to appeal to individuals with varying interests.

Some of the theme’s signature events will revolve around the University’s celebration of the Peace Corps’s 50th anniversary, from Oct. 13-15.

When then-Senator John F. Kennedy was running for president in 1960, he made an impromptu late-night speech to a crowd gathered on the steps of the Michigan Union. In that speech, Kennedy first announced his intentions to create an organization for international service — later to be named the Peace Corps.

Chamberlin said it was a tremendous coincidence that this particular theme semester so appropriately coincides with the Peace Corps celebration.

“That was a lucky accident for us,” he said. “Sometime after we said, ‘Let’s do this!’ we realized the Peace Corps celebration was going to happen. It’s the perfect event to have during the theme semester.”

Chamberlin continued, “Michigan has sent several thousand people into the Peace Corps. It’s been an important way in which liberal arts graduates, in many cases, go out and find themselves in the world.”

A full listing of theme semester events can be found at the theme semester website, www.wmlwl.com.