Nine new classes added to general requirement

It's 10:30 a.m. and it's time to go to another "Health, Environment, and Behavior," lecture, just set up by the School of Arts and Sciences with the help of the Pew Charitable Funds commitment of $1.5 million. But besides the regular in-class talk, which this week is being given by the president of the World Health Organization, the course also includes several other prominent guest lecturers, special lunch hours with experts, and living and learning programs with instructors. · Such a scenario is not unrealistic, according to Associate Dean for the College Norman Adler, who announced Friday the creation of nine interdisciplinary courses which will fulfill the general requirement. The courses, which faculty still have to design, will cross several disciplines and will include guest lecturers. The first few years of the program will be paid for by a $1.5 million "commitment" from the Pew Charitable Trusts. The ambitious program will be phased in over the next three years, with a pilot program beginning in the Spring of 1992. "We want to obliterate the distinction between broad bodies of knowledge and advanced knowledge," Adler said, adding that interdisciplinary courses will provide a connection between different disciplines now viewed by students as unrelated. Alder said he expects the courses to have one lecture section of about 150 students each and between 10 and 15 recitations, some of which will be taught in student's dorms. The courses will provide "a seamless bond for students between outside life and intellectual learning," incorporating "lab work . . . and much better uses of the city's resources." The nine courses, for which descriptions have not yet been created, include Asian Civilization: Individuals, Social Units and Societies; Cognitive Science: A View of the Mind; Health, Environment, and Behavior; Modernism; Molecular Biology; Origin and Development of the Natural World; and Origin and Development of the Social World. Adler said that the "commitments" from Pew are "just a beginning," adding that the program will be expensive. "We'll just have to go out and hustle money," Adler joked. He could not rule out the possibility that the future budget crises may force the program to be cut back or eliminated. "We will be affected by budget cuts," Adler said, adding that he hopes to attract more outside funding for the program. "This [program] is a response to the fragmentation of knowledge," Adler said. "All we can do is give the students the sum total of the knowledge and the tools to use it." President Sheldon Hackney said in a statement released Friday that he hopes "before long to have all of our undergraduates participate in a living experience in which faculty are included." Adler said he hopes to create a Center for Interdisciplinary Study which will expand the concept of the interdisciplinary courses. The nine courses will be opened to freshmen and sophomores beginning in 1992.

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