UCLA Celebrates Lincoln

Join us at CLAFI’s inaugural public event, a gala Celebration of Abraham Lincoln, November 18-21.

For information and to make reservations, click here.

KUSC, Southern California's leading classical music station, recently broadcast a segment with information about CLAFI and the Lincoln Celebration. To listen to a podcast, go here and then click on "Arts Alive" for November 7, 2009. The segment begins about five minutes into the podcast and lasts for 6 1/2 minutes.

Center for the Liberal Arts and Free Institutions

The Center for the Liberal Arts and Free Institutions is an interdisciplinary center created in 2009 as part of the UCLA division of Humanities. CLAFI’s Director is Daniel Lowenstein and its Associate Director is Andrew Sabl. A mission statement is currently being drafted and a faculty Executive Committee being formed. These will be linked here shortly.

CLAFI is founded on these principles:

That an educated citizen in a democracy should have a sound understanding of the history of free institutions and their underlying principles.

That a central purpose of a university is to assist and encourage students, faculty, and others, to confront basic questions of the meaning of life, the nature of the cosmos and of human society, and the principles of right and wrong. The study and appreciation of history, literature and other arts, philosophy, religion, and social science are of value in themselves and are also integral to consideration of these basic questions.

That the study of the great works and achievements of western and other civilizations, not uncritically but with the presumption that we have much to learn from our greatest forerunners, is a valuable if not indispensable means for education directed toward the principles of free institutions and the fundamental questions we face as individuals.

Although UCLA has always contained innumerable faculty and students committed in varying degrees to these principles, the pressure for specialization in a great research university sometimes pushes educational and research activity in other directions. CLAFI exists to provide a home for faculty, students, alumni and others in the surrounding community who share our principles and wish to give them greater emphasis in their own educational and research activity.

CLAFI hopes to pursue these goals through various means. In our first academic year, generous grants are making it possible for us to sponsor our inaugural public event, the Lincoln Celebration of November 18-21, 2009, and to offer two linked demonstration seminars in the winter quarter. We hope to be able to put on more such public events and, particularly, to develop more ambitious curricular programs in the future. We hope that CLAFI will become an informal home for interested students, faculty, and community members who would like to participate in occasional activities, lectures, seminars and discussion groups, performances, and whatever else we and you can think of—including, of course, occasional CLAFI-klatsches! We’d like to publish a journal containing important ideas but accessible to the generally educated public, as well as a newsletter to keep us in touch with our friends and supporters.

What CLAFI can do will be limited only by its resources. We have attracted generous grants from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation and the Apgar Foundation to support our Lincoln Celebration and forthcoming seminars, but as you know, this is a difficult time to be seeking institutional support. We must depend on individuals. If you support CLAFI’s principles or believe you can benefit from some of CLAFI’s activities, we urge you to join us with financial support. We will appreciate gifts at any of the following levels. CLAFI is part of UCLA and contributions are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law.

Student Member - $10 (Students are registered full-time UCLA students)
Member - $25-99
Donor - $100-249 (Donors and higher will be thanked by name in the program for the Lincoln Celebration)
Sponsor - $250-499 (Sponsors are entitled to one place at the VIP dinner, Friday, November 20)
Underwriter - $500-999 (Underwriters and higher are entitled to two places at the VIP dinner, Friday, November 20)
Patron - $1,000-4,999
Benefactor - $5,000-9,999
Angel - $10,000 and over

You can contribute here.