Media Contact: Lori N. Jones, ljones@fairfield.edu, 203-254-4000 x2975

Explore the interactions between the human and natural worlds — on our plates, in our farms and gardens, and in our minds — in a special Open VISIONS Forum featuring best-selling author and influencer Michael Pollan at the Quick Center on Thursday, March 21 at 7:30 p.m.

Pollan’s presentation, “How to Change Your Mind: From Your Garden to Interplanetary Organics,” is part of the Quick Center’s Open VISIONS Forum series led by Fairfield University Professor Philip Eliasoph, PhD. The series offers access to experts and panelists on a range of artistic, political, and cultural topics.

Michael Pollan has been named one of the top 10 “New Thought Leaders” by Newsweek magazine, was chosen by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world, and has been awarded the Lennon-Ono Grant for Peace. 

Pollan is a prolific American author — including six New York Times bestsellers, a journalist, activist, and a professor of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is also the director of the Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism. His most recent book, This is Your Mind on Plants, offers a radical challenge to how we think about drugs, and an exploration into the powerful human attraction to psychoactive plants — and the equally powerful taboos.

In 2017, Pollan was appointed professor of the practice of non-fiction at Harvard and the university’s first Lewis Chan Lecturer in the Arts. In 2020, he co-founded the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics. The center conducts research using psychedelics to investigate cognition, perception, and emotion, and their biological bases in the human brain. In addition to teaching, Pollan lectures widely on food, agriculture, health, and psychedelic science. 

Pollan has received an honorary doctorate from the University of Gastronomic Science and in 2015-16 was a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard. He is a 2022-23 Guggenheim Fellow.

“This is a conversation we think our community will find extremely relevant,” said Lori N. Jones, Director of Programming and Operations for the Quick Center. “We all can benefit from learning how to improve our lives through our relationships with the environment and the natural world. Michael Pollan is a true innovator and thought leader in this domain.”

The Quick Center thanks Moffly Media, Artisan Restaurant, The Delamar Southport, and Delamar Spa for serving as sponsors of this event. Tickets are now on sale on quickcenter.com for $35 and $25 for Quick Members. For more information, contact the Quick Center Box Office at 203-254-4010, Monday through Friday, from 12 to 5 p.m. 

Posted On: March 11, 2024

Volume: 55 Number: 84

Fairfield University is a modern, Jesuit Catholic university rooted in one of the world’s oldest intellectual and spiritual traditions. More than 5,000 undergraduate and graduate students from the U.S. and across the globe are pursuing degrees in the University’s five schools. Fairfield embraces a liberal humanistic approach to education, encouraging critical thinking, cultivating free and open inquiry, and fostering ethical and religious values. The University is located on a stunning 200-acre campus on the scenic Connecticut coast just an hour from New York City.