Academic Blends
Imagine a puzzle box containing pieces from a range of different puzzles. Your job is to assemble a cohesive new puzzle using only these patchwork pieces, taking care to ensure that they all fit together perfectly. This is how Professor René Coppieters, chair of the Linguistics Department, describes the evolution of new multidisciplinary programs at Pomona College.
It is a process he understands well. He has been working on a new interdisciplinary offering, cognitive science, scheduled to debut this fall as a track in the linguistics major (see story on page 32). In contrast to other colleges in the throes of creating "cog-sci" programs, Pomona's offering was established with relative ease because the interest, background and expertise required of faculty were already in place. It was, Coppieters admits, largely a matter of luck.
"All the pieces needed were already there, just waiting to be put together," he explains. "It's unusual to be able to create something of this magnitude without adding new faculty. It involved a lot of serendipity."
Most aspiring interdisciplinary programs aren't so lucky. With the College adhering to a general policy of no growth in enrollment, the debate among trustees, faculty and administrators about the right balance between new interdisciplinary programs and more traditional disciplines is lively and unresolved.
"It's the 47-million-dollar question, isn't it?" says Hans Palmer, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the college.
And it's a question that's also on the minds of a group of Pomona faculty who are developing a viable environmental studies program on campus. Currently, only two introductory courses and a template for a special major exist. And though the proposed program has gained a great deal of support across the faculty, there is continuing discussion on how it should be designed and instituted.
Unlike cognitive science, which draws from a select group of disciplines, environmental studies is extremely broad in scope, according to math professor Richard Elderkin, one of its most energetic proponents. "There's hardly a point of view that doesn't contribute to the field in a meaningful way," he says. "The natural sciences tell us what is happening to the environment physically, but the humanities fashion who we want to be, and the social sciences answer to what extent that want is possible, how we can organize ourselves. All three areas are equally important when trying to understand environmental studies."
All those pieces, however, make environmental studies a more complex puzzle to assemble. "It takes a lot of effort to bring faculty together," Elderkin notes. "We have to build a consensus from all corners of the campus."
Of course, not all faculty are enthusiastic about interdisciplinary programs. For Professor Wayne Steinmetz of the Chemistry Department, their complexity is a concern in and of itself. "The mission of an undergraduate education is to develop leadership, to provide the fundamentals of knowledge," he argues. "If you dig deeply into a subject, something happens in the mind that makes it easy to cross disciplinary boundaries." Steinmetz worries that interdisciplinary programs may sacrifice depth for breadth but points to molecular biology as a program that crosses academic boundaries but still focuses on fundamentals. He also worries that with the addition of new interdisciplinary programs, the resources available to the traditional disciplines may be stretched thin.
However, the newly established cognitive science track and the embryonic environmental studies program share some important puzzle pieces: firm commitment from a number of dedicated faculty, a spirit of perseverance and a belief among their proponents that multidisciplinary programs do have an important place in the curriculum of a college like Pomona.
How will these particular programs fare? Says Coppieters of cognitive science, "We have the right people at Pomona to construct a very strong program." And Elderkin remains strongly optimistic that environmental studies will work its way through the system and find a home at Pomona. "We're building in that direction; it's coming," he says. "Ultimately it's for the cause of the environment."
--Sarah Hahn '01
