“We have been looking for an [interdepartmental] structure that would allow for the different disciplines to have their own identities, while also helping us work together in a cohesive way,” says David Culver, associate dean of sciences and professor of environmental science. The restructuring of the sciences at AU, he says, “is a way to balance working together and functioning independently.”
A major thrust of this restructuring is the formation of three new departments: Environmental studies, formerly under the biology department, has become the Department of Environmental Science. The Department of Computer Science, Audio Technology, and Physics (CAP) has been dissolved to create separate computer science and physics departments. And, audio technology has moved to the Department of Performing Arts.
According to Kiho Kim, chair of the environmental science department, transforming environmental studies into an autonomous department was essential to the discipline’s continued development at AU. “It allows us greater visibility within the university and recognizes the importance of this discipline,” he explains.
It also makes it easier to appeal to prospective students. “When you’re housed within a pure science department, people make assumptions that your program is all science,” says Kim. “By being our own department, we can really play up that we have interdisciplinary programs that draw from the sciences, social sciences, arts, and other schools in the university community.”
Physics chair Nathan Harshman expresses similar sentiments about the dissolution of CAP: “Definite synergies have existed between our computer science, audio technology, and physics programs,” he says, “but at the point we are now, we want to build a top undergraduate program. This is a good time to turn inward and start building [physics] up from the core.”
He adds, “Since our peer institutions all have stand-alone physics departments, this will make it so much easier to recruit students and faculty.”
Separating the fields previously under CAP also makes it easier to address discipline-specific issues. Angela Wu, former chair of CAP and current chair of the computer science department, gives an example: “Computer science is particularly concerned with computer labs and servers, and our curriculum needs to be updated constantly to reflect changes in the field. As a dedicated computer science chair, I can focus more on these issues.”
While the restructuring allows greater autonomy for several scientific disciplines, the appointment of an associate dean of sciences gives the departments a centralized voice. Culver will organize and advocate for AU’s science community, overseeing the new entities, as well as the existing departments of biology and chemistry and the premedical program.
This centralization will benefit science students, both majors and nonmajors. In addition to facilitating crossdepartment course scheduling, Culver says, “we also hope to take a long, hard look at how we’re doing with our general education courses and how we could make them better. We share a really strong commitment to training every student in some aspect of the sciences.”
Harshman adds, “A lot of people on campus don’t know what’s going on with our sciences. We hope that this is going to allow us to come up with a unified strategy to make sure people know we are doing good science teaching and research here.”
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In a world of peace talkers, Karen Dolan, MA philosophy and social policy ’97, is a doer. Since 2002, the AU alumna has directed Cities for Peace, an initiative that promotes national and international peace education and action at the local level.
Sponsored by the Institute for Policy Studies, Cities for Peace was born of an earlier project called the Progressive Challenge. “The focus [of the Progressive Challenge] was to empower local communities by networking them with federal lawmakers and encouraging them to be active in national and international politics,” says Dolan. “But in the run-up to the war in Iraq, most of the projects at the institute switched their focus to trying to prevent the invasion.”
Several cities passed peace resolutions to protest the impending war. Cities for Peace began, says Dolan, “to help facilitate these resolutions and put a national movement around what otherwise were a few disconnected local resolutions here and there.”
The organization’s efforts saw results. In the months leading up to the invasion, more than 200 cities around the country penned resolutions against the war, which were presented to Congress by city representatives. These resolutions now reside in the National Archives. Cities for Peace subsequently organized two additional campaigns; a third is currently underway to oppose military aggression against Iran.
Peace resolutions also trigger a paradigm shift on the local level. Many participating towns have allocated funds for programs that emphasize peace education and global awareness. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, for example, the municipal government even created a position for a peace commissioner. “Cambridge is the model,” says Dolan, “for what can happen when there’s actually a funded peace commissioner within the town government [who] can devote resources to issues of antimilitarism and redirecting national budgetary priorities.”
Dolan began working as an intern at the Institute for Policy Studies while completing her master’s in philosophy. “Philosophy on its own can be a very academic, theoretical discipline,” she says. “The program at AU combined that with a more practical and political approach. I thought it was the best program to prepare me to work here—and it was.”
Related links: Philosophy & Religion Dept
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