The Integrative Science and Engineering Program proposed at last week's faculty meeting aims to create a new University program emphasizing multidisciplinary science. The proposal, written by the Science Cohort Committee, puts forth a plan to educate undergraduates in topics where traditional departments, such as chemistry, biology, engineering and physics, overlap.
If the proposal is approved, 60 students will be admitted to the new program each year. High school seniors will apply to the program separately from students applying to the general undergraduate program, much like the current Program in Liberal Medical Education.
Once enrolled, students will first take three introductory courses focusing on multidisciplinary science, taught by pairs of professors from different scientific disciplines. After completing this sequence, students will take two advanced courses that further emphasize a multidisciplinary education.
Professor of Computer Science Thomas Dean, also the chairman of the Science Cohort Committee, said he hopes that the new program, if approved by a full faculty vote, will invigorate both Brown's science departments and the University as a whole. "The benefits are not just for the sciences," Dean said. He added that the program will "create a livelier environment and increase interplay" among all academic departments.
Professor of Physics Chung-I Tan, who has participated in discussion of the proposal for over a year, agreed. "Enhancing one part of the University will enhance them all," he said.
Tan also believes that the program would increase the University's appeal to exceptional high school science students who might otherwise apply to traditionally praised science schools such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the California Institute of Technology.
The program will require all students to complete a traditional concentration in the sciences, such as physics, chemistry, biology or engineering. "Students will have some real expertise in a particular discipline," Dean said.
In addition to classes, the program will emphasize research by offering its students two fully funded summer research opportunities with University faculty and requiring its students to complete a senior thesis with a member of the University's science faculty.
Dean expects that this emphasis on research will better prepare science concentrators to engage in the complex, multidisciplinary areas of modern science, such as nanotechnology.
"Students will have ... the experience of working with other scientists on all kinds of problems that require multidisciplinary effort," Dean said.
Dean and Tan also expect that the program will increase diversity among Brown's undergraduate science concentrators. According to Dean, women, blacks and Hispanics are represented less in the science departments than in the larger student body.
Through targeted recruitment of a distinctly diverse body of high school seniors, the program is designed to prepare talented science students of all backgrounds for a strenuous career in multidisciplinary science. "It's a tragedy when you have talent and lack opportunity," Tan said.
Deputy Provost Vincent Tompkins - who took over leadership of the proposal from Dean in October - said that recruitment for the program will center on making high school counselors and science teachers aware of the excellent education in the sciences available at the University. "These are the people (prospective students) go to for advice," Tompkins said.
Tan stressed that the differences between Brown and other prestigious science schools, such as the open curriculum and Brown's strength in the humanities, will make the University especially attractive to prospective Integrative Science and Engineering Program students. "Brown isn't only focused on science," he said.
Tan added that the high availability and willingness of University faculty to support undergraduate education will add to the program's appeal.
Although Dean expects that many of these courses will need to be created, both he and Tompkins said that many classes currently available in both the chemistry and engineering departments would already be appropriate for the program's multidisciplinary requirements.
Although a faculty steering committee will oversee the administration of these courses, ultimate discretion over course structure will fall to the pairs of professors themselves. "(The faculty) have to own the courses," Dean said.
Tompkins said criticism of the program has already stemmed from faculty both within and outside of the sciences. He said those opposed to the program worry that it will isolate its students from the student body as a whole. However, Tompkins emphasized the program's "porous" nature - students will be free to abandon the program once at Brown, and students not enrolled in the program will have access to the three introductory courses in multidisciplinary science.
He added that some faculty fear the program's five required courses - on top of a full science concentration - will deny students the opportunity to engage in the broad liberal arts education available at Brown.
However, Tompkins said the multidisciplinary requirements will likely contribute to students' traditional concentrations and consequently will not take time away from elective courses. "There will be overlap," he said.
Dean said that as the frontiers of scientific research further blur the lines among traditional disciplines, collaboration among scientists trained in multiple disciplines is becoming increasingly necessary. "All these people need to be working together," he said.
