UCI’s intellectual treasures on display

Sometimes it’s easy to forget what a treasure the Newport-Mesa community enjoys in UC Irvine.

Sure there’s the fun of the basketball, baseball and water polo teams. Plenty of us have sent kids there, where they could get a University of California education but still stop by for dinner. (That may have felt like more of a treasure for the parents than the kids.) But the university also is a rich source for intellectual stimulation of a world-class sort.

There was a fine reminder of UCI’s status on Tuesday’s Forum page in a column listing the events surrounding the sixth annual Chancellor’s Distinguished Fellows Series. Tuesday’s paper included a complete list, but for those who missed it -- and those who didn’t -- here are the speakers who have us excited and who look more than worth checking out in the coming months.

* Mary Frances Berry, the former chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, will give an interesting talk, “Civil Rights in the United States: Past, Present and Future?” It is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Feb. 16 in Crystal Cove Auditorium at the Student Center.

* The 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai, will speak at 7 p.m. March 20. His talk is titled, “Environment: The Language of Human Life,” and will be held in the Humanities Instructional Building, Room 100.

* The failed scientist that lurks inside most journalists wants to be befuddled by Smithsonian astrophysicist Margaret Geller. Known for her 3-D map of the universe, she will give a talk on “Einstein Meets Newton: Mapping Dark Matter in the Universe.” It will be at 8 p.m. April 19 in the Social Science Lecture Hall.

* We’re also intrigued by the prospect of listening to Marvin Minsky of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A pioneer of artificial intelligence, he will be talking about “Building Intelligent Machines: Impact on Our Lives Today and Vision for the Future.” It begins at 7 p.m. May 24 in the Beckman Center.

Those talks are just a few of the many engrossing activities UCI has to offer. If they are a bit too cerebral, there’s always the sports teams.