Along with new course offerings proposed for the spring of 2001, the College's academic program Humanitates Vitae will be hosting a Student Science Court featuring the topics of HIV and AIDS in Africa this spring in conjunction with the Ethics Institute.
According to Humanitates Vitae Director Lee Witters, the aim of the Science Courts, as with the new classes, is to foster an interdisciplinary approach to education.
"The idea is to bring students to the topic rather than putting the topic to them within the classroom environment," Witters told The Dartmouth.
"There are lots of students in the humanities that have a knee-jerk reaction to the sciences courses, and similarly plenty of sciences students that avoid the English classes. There is a lot of richness and opportunity to be had in combining these," he said.
Witters said that the issues tackled during this year's Science Court will include the questions of how the US should respond to the AIDS crisis, how Americans can help pay for drug treatments in Africa and whether it is feasible to apply a first world medical system to a third world country.
Participants will also examine the ethical consequences of patient-oriented research and what the cultural implications of all the above matters will be.
The format of the event will involve a series of guests with expertise on the topic who will attempt to convince the audience of their positions. At the end of the day, student participants will have the opportunity to vote on a series of questions.
"We told the speakers to be sure to speak to the students," said Witters in emphasis.
The list of speakers for this year's event will include such various figures as the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, the Coordinator of the National Community of Women with HIV/AIDS in Uganda, representatives from the pharmaceutical company Pfizer, Inc. and the Global Health Council (with offices in White River Junction, Vermont) and tentatively, U.S.Congresswoman Barbara Lee.
"It was very important to us that we not all be a bunch of American talking heads -- or all Caucasians, to be honest," said Witters of the diverse group.
This event is the second of its kind, as last January the two groups held a program entitled "The Future of Stem Cells," which debated the ethical issues involved in using human stem cell lines for high-tech medical therapies. The debate here lies in the fact that stem cell lines are obtained from frozen embryos and aborted fetuses.
Last year, over 200 undergraduates from the College joined medical and graduate students at the Student Science Court.
Witters said the program intends to hold these Courts once or twice a year, selecting a topic from current events.
"We want to make these timely, interesting, and we want them to be controversial," he pointed out.
Humanitates Vitae ultimately hopes to integrate the Student Science Courts into the syllabi of the new human biology course offerings.
"Our long term goal is that the new classes will build these Student Science Courts into their discussions in class. We want them to talk about it beforehand and debate the results of votes afterwards," said Witters.
Funding for the Student Science Court is obtained from a variety of sources, including the Dickey Center, Dartmouth Medical School, the Rockefeller Center and the Provost's Office.
