Winter
2005 / Volume 10, Number 2
Centers
of the Universe
Building
Bridges across Disciplines
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Lauret
Savoy, Director of the Center for the Environment |
In
assuming leadership of the Center
for the Environment (CE)
this fall, geology and environmental studies professor Lauret Savoy
said, “the
flavor I want to bring is that of bridging—across disciplines,
across points of view, across structures that keep us from engaging
in dialogue about ‘environment’ in our work, community,
and lives. I want people to imagine ‘environment’ broadly—not
just as surroundings, not just as the air, water, and land on which
we depend or that we pollute—but as sets of circumstances, conditions,
and contexts in which we live, work, and develop.” To this end,
she has issued a call for ideas to the MHC community, seeking input
on issues the center might address. Although new on the job, Savoy has
agreed to undertake projects this year with the Five College Dance Department
and the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum. This fall, in connection with
an MHC production of Mac Wellman’s play A Murder of Crows,
the CE cosponsored with the theatre arts department a panel discussion
on the theatre of place.
Eva
Paus,
Director of the Center for Global Initiatives |
Likewise, the Center
for Global Initiatives (CGI) develops curricular and cocurricular programming
that spans a wide range of academic disciplines. “In addition
to initiating new global education activities, which reach across the campus
and beyond, the CGI coordinates the College’s existing internationally
related offerings into a coherent and dynamic whole,” said CGI director
Eva Paus. “The center’s work is cross-disciplinary by definition.” A
prime example of CGI’s creative programming was the recent visit of Dr.
Gro Brundtland, CGI’s 2005 Global Studies Fellow-in-Residence. A former
director-general of the World Health Organization and former prime minister
of Norway, Brundtland engaged the campus and the wider community on a number
of
issues. Among her many activities, she met with students in medical anthropology,
economics, and geography classes; she discussed the challenges facing women
who seek leadership positions with a group of local high school students;
she addressed
a standing-room only crowd on the problems, politics, and policies of global
health threats; and she met with a group of Five College faculty for dinner
and discussion of the new global health structures of government.
In spring 2006 the Center for Global Initiatives will launch the first in a series
of biennial conferences on global challenges cosponsored by the New York Times
Knowledge Network. In advance of the conference, The New Global Division
of Labor: Winners and Losers of Offshore Outsourcing, eight professors
from economics, politics, international relations, and computer science will
team teach a mini-course
for a large number of students on issues relevant to the conference. “We
consider this course a pilot for a new teaching structure that will increase
the educational value of large conferences,” Paus said.
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Lois
Brown,
Director of the Weissman Center |
The oldest of the
three centers, the Weissman
Center for Leadership and the Liberal Arts (WCL), has been a
pioneer in cross-disciplinary programming, and Lois Brown, associate
professor of English who became director
of the center in July 2005,
is continuing to engage a wide range of participants in WCL programs. This
fall the center presented Law and Dis/Order, a series of
lectures and panel discussions focusing on ways in which
law contributes to notions
of social order
and also to civic disorder. Activists, historians, lawyers, and public
intellectuals, such as Jonathan Kozol, Joan Jacobs Brumberg, Cristina Rathbone,
Judge Joyce
London Alexander, and James Bamford, engaged with students, faculty, and
staff throughout the semester. Panel topics included law and disorder in
and beyond
Iraq; the U.S.’s treatment of war prisoners; resegregation of American
public schools; the experiences, history, and global politics relating
to women and prison; and the juvenile death penalty in historical perspective.
In spring
2006 the center will present a series on historic, political, architectural,
social, and civic acts of reconstruction. The series will feature a play,
which the WCL and the theatre arts department have commissioned, that invokes
themes
of American post-Civil War reconstruction by New York City-based playwright
Zakiyyah Alexander.
A key component of the Weissman Center is its Speaking, Arguing,
and Writing Program (SAW), which provides trained student
mentors to assist their peers in
improving their communication skills. SAW mentor Katherine Braucher ’06
enjoys helping students in a range of disciplines to write better and has found
that her work has made her own writing stronger. “I see my role as a facilitator
in the student’s writing process, not as an editor or critic. Working
across disciplines can be a
challenge, but I find that to a large extent, the basic components of a
strong piece of writing are universal,” she said. This fall, SAW
and the Center for Global Initiatives created the SAW foreign language
writing
assistance program, which helps students in advanced French, Italian, Spanish,
and German classes write papers in those languages.
The Weissman Center also runs the College’s Community-Based Learning Program
(CBL), which offers action-based courses that “strengthen ties between
students, faculty, and our neighboring communities,” said WCL director
Brown.
While the centers create common ground among diverse fields of study, they also
work with each other on programming. Last year, for example, the Weissman Center
and the Center for Global Initiatives hosted a panel on international views of
the U.S. 2004 election results. The WCL also cosponsored with the Center for
the Environment a series titled Water Matters, which engaged artists,
public policy experts, and environmental activists to discuss the political,
social, and cultural dimensions of the world’s water. The idea for
the series originated with a CE-sponsored faculty seminar on nonscientific
perspectives
on water, which prompted
faculty in a variety of disciplines to teach water-related courses, such
as African Environments, Ecological Art: Imaging and Writing Water, and
International Water
Issues and Politics. “These courses might not otherwise be happening in
the same year. Students can really be immersed in the topic across the curriculum.
Breaking down curricular divides is crucial here,” said Karen Remmler,
a former WCL director.
The MHC centers also enjoy fruitful collaborations with other
institutions on campus. The Mount Holyoke College Art Museum
is a key player in the centers’ cocurricular
programming. In connection with Water Matters and numerous Weissman
Center programs, for example, the art museum has mounted exhibitions, both
from its own collections and elsewhere. “Collaborations with the Weissman Center
and the Center for the Environment have been some of our most successful efforts
to integrate the art museum into the curricular and cocurricular life of the
College,” said museum director Marianne Doezema. The Center for the Environment
hopes to work with the Botanic Garden and facilities management on a variety
of projects, including documenting and protecting the campus’s rich canopy
of trees. As part of a coalition that includes student environmental leaders,
faculty from the departments of biology and earth and environment, and the Weissman
Center’s Community-Based Learning Program, the Center for the Environment
has also begun exploring the possibility of an organic farm.
Bridging the Campus and the World
The MHC centers actively promote opportunities for students
to experience the world beyond the campus. The Center for
the Environment looks forward to joining
with campus organizations such as CAUSE, a student-run social justice and
community outreach group. Also in the works is an expanded
internship program that, along
with traditional environmental organizations, will offer opportunities
within such organizations as the Urban Ecology Institute and
the Center for Whole
Communities. “We
want to work with people who are linking the social with the environmental,” CE
director Savoy said. “The environment is the context in which we
live our lives, and that includes how we interact with each other.”
Associate professor of politics and Weissman Center associate
director Preston Smith, who coordinates the center’s Community-Based Learning Program, traces
the College’s commitment to civic engagement to its founder, Mary Lyon;
he believes that civic engagement “should be part of a Mount Holyoke education.” CBL
gives students the opportunity to engage with organizations and individuals in
the community. Smith has long been involved in the neighboring city of Holyoke
and draws on his familiarity with community organizations there to find enriching
CBL opportunities for students. Smith recognizes that “the more a community
organization gains from a CBL experience, the more invested it is in the relationship
with the class and the more a student gets from it.” To maximize
the effectiveness of CBL, he has created a series of workshops for students
to
prepare them to
work knowledgeably and effectively in the field.
Center for Global Initiatives director Eva Paus has made increasing
opportunities for students to work and study abroad a major
priority. “Immersion in another
culture and country provides unique opportunities for students to understand
the world through a different lens and to question their own assumptions and
beliefs,” said Paus. “The College’s ultimate goal is for each
student to have had a learning experience abroad by the time she graduates.” In
addition to taking a semester or year abroad, students can take January Term
and summer courses abroad, collaborate with faculty on research at foreign universities,
and have international internships. The CGI works with the larger MHC community—including
alumnae, parents, and friends—to institutionalize internships that
provide connections and experiences beyond those offered by typical internships
available
to student populations elsewhere.
As we move into the twenty-first century, it is increasingly clear that
knowledge is not contained within artificially imposed boundaries. Intellectual
hubs such
as the Weissman Center and the Centers for Global Initiatives and the Environment
help scholars transcend disciplinary limits and enhance their educational
experience.
On
the MHC Web:
Center
for the Environment
Center
for Global Initiatives Weissman
Center for Leadership
Vista
- Winter 2005 Index
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