Despite the arrival of the Class of 1998 and the implementation of the new curriculum, the development of the interdisciplinary offerings, one of the new course requirements, is far from complete.
In this year's Organization, Rules, and Courses book, only six or seven courses will fulfill the interdisciplinary requirement, College Registrar Thomas Bickel said.
All members of the Class of 1998 and later are required to take one interdisciplinary class, defined in the ORC as "a course taught by members of at least two different departments or programs."
"We are aiming to have 24 [interdisciplinary] courses in place" by the 1996-97 school year, Dean of the Faculty James Wright said last spring.
About 60 members of the Class of 1998 are currently enrolled in Humanities 1, a class which fulfills the interdisciplinary requirement, Bickel said.
Though the new courses are designed with the Class of 1998 and later classes in mind, "There's nothing that forbids" upperclass students from taking the courses, said Russian Professor Barry Scherr, who heads the College Course Steering Committee
Students taking interdisciplinary courses can apply those credits to the fulfillment of requirements in any of the sponsoring departments - or distributive sections.
Scherr said the committee is working to develop more interdisciplinary classes.
The committee will approve six interdisciplinary classes to be grouped in the College Course section of next year's ORC, Scherr said. The College Course section, which appears in the ORC like a department, was created in 1968 as a specific category for interdisciplinary courses.
Other team-taught courses, such as Humanities 1 and Psychology 3, Introduction to the Neurosciences, are also considered interdisciplinary but are not listed as College Courses.
One point of contention among the faculty has been the definition of an interdisciplinary class. For the purposes of the College Course Steering Committee, an interdisciplinary class is taught by "two different profs from two departments," Scherr said.
But there is a possibility that a professor with expertise in two fields could teach an interdisciplinary class, he added.
However, Scherr said the committee has faced difficulties due to its creation after the development of the new curriculum.
By next year, it is possible that the committee will receive "more proposals than we'll actually be able to support," Scherr said."Most of them would fit into one of the three academic sections," he said.
The budget allotted for the new courses will not pay for new professors in departments, but could indirectly expand the faculty, Scherr said.
Departments, which usually pay professors out of their own budgets, are reimbursed for the work professors do in interdisciplinary courses, potentially freeing that money to either increase teaching loads or to hire new ones.
When asked about the requirement, Karen Thickman '98 said "I think it's a good idea, but it kind of misses the mark."
She said she felt that the College should strive to make all classes, not just the interdisciplinary ones, more cohesive.
