Zhihe Wang, China Project Co-Director
Clifford Cobb, Board Member of the Institute for the Postmodern Development of China and Editor of the American Journal of Economics and Sociology
Jay Jones, Professor Emeritus of Biology and Biochemistry at the University of La Verne
This Process Explorations session offers a reflective account of a recent journey through several regions of China, undertaken in the wake of John B. Cobb Jr.’s passing. Rather than a travel report or a series of separate observations, this online session seeks to convey the journey as a lived and unfolding whole.Meijun Fan, Zhihe Wang, Cliff Cobb, and Jay Jones will add their perspectives regarding what was offered and received at the various institutions and in transit. The value of these interactions extend far beyond the interactions themselves. They provide additional tesserae that help everyone involved get a better view of process thinking and its relation to world events. Jay for instance uses this enhanced knowledge in presentations related to various aspects of sustainability. Much of the enhanced perspectives came from direct observation in transit and during all phases of this collective endeavor.Drawing on shared experiences with colleagues who participated in the journey in different ways and at different moments, we will weave together reflections on people, places, relationships, and emerging changes. The focus is on China not as a fixed picture, but as a dynamic process—shaped by memory, care, tension, creativity, and hope.
About the Presenter(s)
Clifford Cobb is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned a master’s degree in public policy. He is author of Responsive Schools, Renewed Communities: A Communitarian Proposal for Systemic Education Reform; co-author of The Green National Product: An Alternative Measure of the National Economy, co-editor of The Path to Justice: Essays on the Philosophy and Economics of Henry George, contributor to For the Common Good, and author of several articles on social indicators and environmental taxes. In 1999, he was invited to write a background paper for a planning session in Denmark on social indicators in preparation for the United Nations Summit on Social Development. In 1994, he helped establish Redefining Progress, a social policy think-tank in San Francisco, and he remains a senior fellow, doing research projects on common property resources and tax policy. In 1995, he served as a member of an advisory committee for President Clinton’s Council on Sustainable Development. In 2026 Cliff is hoping to retire a second and final time from editing the American Journal of Economics and Sociology. At that point, he hopes to devote more time to exploring how process thought can be applied to topics in social and economic theory that are currently in philosophical limbo.
Dr. Jay Jones has broad academic training with concentrations ranging from Microbiology and Botany to Geology and Chemistry. He has held appointments with Argonne National Laboratory, The National Park Service, Ripon College in Wisconsin, IU-PU at Indianapolis, ARCO Oil and Gas Exploration Research, and as a remote sensing consultant to NASA. For 35 years he served as Professor of Biology and Biochemistry at the University of La Verne, now emeritus, where he taught a diverse array of courses, including a course called, Toward a Sustainable Planet. Although emeritus he continues to teach. Travels associated with teaching and research, have allowed direct observation of environmental changes at home and abroad. (e.g. Amazon, Australia, Borneo, Central America, China, Europe, Galapagos, the Middle East, Malawi, Nepal, Rwanda, Vietnam) In past years, Jay represented the University on the National Council for Science and the Environment, (now GCSE). His professional efforts are currently focused on sharing information regarding various aspects of environmental sustainability through presentations and workshops with the goal of fostering change.
