Dear College Faculty and Staff,
I would like to use today’s issue of Notes from the Dean to draw attention to an important aspect of what it means to study and learn in the College of Arts and Sciences, as well as more broadly at Santa Clara University. As the largest undergraduate academic unit, we celebrate the benefits of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary study. While not every student double majors or declares a minor, a significant percentage of our students do, and they find amazing ways to combine subjects based on their interests.
Starting in the 19th century, when canonical disciplines established their primacy in higher education curricula, interdisciplinarity started to get a bad name. The bad rap persisted long into the 20th century. I experienced this as a new faculty member in Environmental Studies (a subversive, suspect field if there ever was one) in the early 1990s. There was much fear around interdisciplinary research and teaching. Would our students be Jacks and Jills of all trades, mastering nothing? Was every field with the word “studies” in it really only a form of advocacy, lacking rigor and forgoing evidence? Would employers know what to do with students who had been trained so broadly?
Happily, the ensuing decades have been much kinder to interdisciplinarity. Many more colleges and universities than ever have embraced the notion that interdisciplinary boundary-crossing works wonders on young minds. I would even say that educating the whole person includes thinking about students as complex, multifaceted beings who have curiosity and expressiveness not always easily contained in one discipline.
Of course, our core curriculum embodies these multi- and interdisciplinary commitments. Building on what our core curriculum achieves, we have been exploring ways to inspire interdisciplinary study beyond the lower division. Working with a very talented design firm, Corduroy Media, we will soon open an upcoming installation, Convergence: The Limitless Potential of a Multidisciplinary Education. The banner here provides a teaser so you can get a feel for the look and style of the exhibit.
We will have an opening reception to celebrate this new and hopefully inspiring installation, so please save the date for February 28th, from 4-5:30 p.m. in the SCDI East Lobby, right next to the exhibit. We would love to see you all there!
Sincerely,
Daniel
