The Dr. Sanford I. Berman Chair in General Semantics

Department of Communication University of Califronia, San Diego

My name is Michael Cole. I am a Professor of Communication, Psychology, and Human Development and the first holder of the Berman chair at UCSD. The Chair was created through the generosity of Dr. Sanford I. Berman. Dr. Berman studied General Semantics with Dr. Irving J. Lee, who played a central role in introducing Alfred Korzybski's ideas to American academia. Dr. Berman has maintained a life-long interest in General Semantics and has also endowed chairs at San Diego State University and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas to promote research and teaching in the field of General Semantics. The purpose of this note is to explain briefly how I conceive of my goals in fulfilling this important responsibility.

For three decades I have devoted myself to assisting in the building of a Communication Department at UCSD and in the building of the discipline of Communication as a new, trans-disciplinary, academic undertaking. I came to this task from a background in the study of culture and human development that drew its theoretical roots from a combination of Russian semiotic/psychological theories of development, the ideas of American pragmatists such as John Dewey, and the work of cultural anthropologists concerned with the relations between language, thought, and culture.

It is against this background that I have organized my work as Berman chair. I take it as my responsibility to seek to promote dialogue between the ideas developed by the adherents of General Semantics and those that animate the discipline of Communication. Together with Greg Thompson, the Sanford I. Berman Post-Doctoral Scholar, and with colleagues at the Laboratory of Comparative Human Development, we have outlined some of the contributions of General Semantics to the Discipline of Communication.