RE Log Fall 2019

26 Ransom Everglades LOG FALL 2019 An Interdisciplinary Approach RE reconfigures academic departments to inspire creativity, collaboration Bridge building. If you were to ask RE students what this term means to them, they would probably light up and tell you about the exciting bridge-building competition that takes place every spring in the Lewis Family Auditorium. They might tell you how their experiences in physics, math, engineering and architecture classes helped them conceive their designs and shape the aesthetic. It is these real-world interdisciplinary challenges, whether they connect math and science, English and history, world languages or another field, that truly energize our students. Those challenges do something else, too: They prepare our students for the world of the future. Our hope is to increase the opportunities for such exposure as we lead reshaped academic departments in 2019-20. The goal is to continue to help our students forge connections across the formidable divides they are likely to face. We are excited to play our part in leading this initiative. We are pleased to inaugurate the creation of integrated academic departments in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math), Humanities and World Languages & Global Studies, which is led by our colleague, Dr. James Monk. This strategic consolidation considers how the educational landscape is changing. RE students face markedly different challenges than those in Paul Ransom’s day. We still aim to provide a rigorous, foundational liberal arts education with an emphasis on our public purpose. Yet we also recognize the need to continue to innovate and develop a curriculum that will better prepare our students to adapt to the changes — both foreseen and unforeseen — that lie ahead. Who knows what jobs will exist in the coming decades or even the ways in which we will work? Disruptions brought on by, for example, globalization, climate change and technological advances — while cause for concern — can be seen equally as opportunities. The compelling question for us as educators is: How do we prepare students to become more resilient and poised to make sense of and embrace these challenges? These are complex problems that will require interdisciplinary approaches. Movement toward the formation of these integrated departments is a critical step to prepare students to become more agile, adaptive, analytical and collaborative. This restructuring opens up opportunities for faculty collaboration, not simply to accelerate the exchange of ideas, but also to nurture growth in our curriculum and practices. For example, though we come from different academic backgrounds, a joint interest in entrepreneurship drew us to work together around the RE Business Plan Challenge. We are now piloting a more formal approach to entrepreneurship education, one that is also poised to take advantage of growing capacity for prototyping and testing of ideas, whether in new computer or data science offerings or in our new STEM Center. There are countless other ways to build bridges and connect academic disciplines: A sophomore English student will find The Great Gatsby offers a lens into the socio-economic context of the 1920s; a junior in government class may find common ground on civil rights with a classmate who self-identifies as an ideological counterpart; a senior in an economics class may choose to pitch a business plan in Spanish: All have started the construction of bridges of their own. Some of our flagship programs and initiatives — Bay Studies and Outward Bound; our student publications such as The Catalyst and Inklings ; and the more recent RE Energy and Climate Change Symposium — are at their core experiential and interdisciplinary. All have been so well received; we want to continue to build on this enthusiasm. Fortunately, our opportunities and resources to pursue these goals are abundant: We do not have to look far to find the creativity, passion and purpose that are generated by RE faculty and students in ongoing initiatives. What advantages can an RE humanities program bring to this endeavor? As our students face the uncertainties that lie ahead, we want them to be able pursue lives that will have meaning and richness. A quest for a meaningful life draws on our capacity to nurture enduring values of truth, beauty, happiness and justice. What will happen to our ability to uphold these values as society continues to wrestle with changing norms surrounding privacy and communication? And another vexing question persists: How can innovation and resiliency thrive in a climate of political polarization? In facing these questions, we can find some solace and support in the humanities. An integrated writing curriculum across English, history and the social sciences can allow our students to hone their self-expression skills and nurture creativity while going far From the Ransom Campus Doug Heller ’80, Jen Nero, James Monk “Who knows what jobs will exist in the coming decades or even the ways in which we will work? ... The compelling question for us as educators is: How do we prepare students to become more resilient and poised to make sense of and embrace these challenges?” Continues, page 86