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Pomona
College Awarded $800,000 Grant to Support Cognitive
Science Program
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Pomona College has been awarded a grant from The Fletcher
Jones Foundation in the amount of $800,000 to support its
cognitive science program. The funds will be used to build
state-of-the-art facilities for the program in a new
building slated for construction in 2005, and to support
independent study and research opportunities for students.
Pomona College’s program in cognitive science is part of the
Department of Linguistics and Cognitive Science, established
in 2000, which offers a multidisciplinary approach to the
study of language and mind. By creating the department, and
its major in cognitive science, Pomona College enabled its
students to investigate the human mind using a
multidisciplinary approach. Only a handful of other liberal
arts colleges have fully structured cognitive science
majors.
“Pomona has made a major commitment to develop a
multi-disciplinary approach to linguistics and cognitive
science,” says Pomona College President David Oxtoby. “In
addition to being closely linked to the College’s program in
neuroscience, cognitive science also draws upon faculty in
the departments of philosophy, psychology, music and
mathematics/computer science. The curriculum affirms the
faculty’s belief that integration of material from these
disciplines is required to explain the operations of the
human mind, especially those that involve language.”
The grant money will help fund a two-building complex that
will begin construction during the 2005–06 academic year.
The planned complex will provide office, laboratory, and
classroom space for the Department of Linguistics and
Cognitive Science, as well as the intercollegiate
departments of Black Studies, Chicano Studies, and Asian
American Studies (programs of The Claremont Colleges), and
for Pomona College departments of environmental analysis,
psychology, geology, neuroscience and computer science.
Funds from the grant will also help Pomona College meet the
growing student demand for research opportunities in the
Department of Linguistics and Cognitive Science. Enrollment
in the introductory courses offered by the department has
doubled since the last academic year, causing the college to
offer more sections of the courses this year. Student summer
research opportunities with faculty in the department have
proved so popular that some applicants have had to be turned
away. This grant will help to fund additional positions for
students to engage in collaborative research projects with
cognitive science faculty on campus each summer.
Cognitive science arose as a specific field of inquiry only
two to three decades ago. Mind and brain researchers
pursuing independent lines of study found that their work
increasingly touched on other disciplines, and they began to
explore a concerted approach. The time was right, says Jay
David Atlas, Peter W. Stanley Professor of Philosophy and
Linguistics at Pomona College. “The neuroscientists were
making great progress. The linguists had been making great
strides. And cognitive psychologists had been very
successful in discovering all kinds of new ways to study the
brain.”
The goal of cognitive science is to explain the operations
of the human mind—its ability to perceive the world, to
think and talk about the world, and to think
self-consciously about its own thoughts. The investigation
of these fundamental issues has implications for some of the
most important human problems; for example, how to maintain
cognitive ability in the face of neural degradation, how to
enhance learning in children and adults and how to use
artificial intelligence to enhance human functioning.
The Fletcher Jones Foundation is a Los Angeles-based
nonprofit committed to the support private colleges and
universities in California. The Foundation is governed by a
distinguished eleven-member Board of Trustees drawn from the
ranks of business, law, finance, banking, education and
government.
Pomona College is one of the nation’s premier liberal arts
institutions, offering a comprehensive program in the arts,
humanities, social sciences and natural sciences. Its
hallmarks include small classes, close relationships between
students and faculty, and a range of opportunities for
student research. Visit Pomona College on the web at
www.pomona.edu.
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