Through the College Teaching Journal I came across a very interesting article called "Combining Art and Science in "Arts and Sciences" Education." This article is about a project that was done by an Art Professor and a Biology Professor bringing together both science and art students at Wagner College in Staten Island. The project involved scientific research that used digital imaging of the brain of a Zebrafish. This project was an opportunity to combine disciplines to do research but to also allow arts students and science students to come into contact with disciplines that they would normally not be involved with.
The Professors involved believe that with the rapidly changing information in the world a liberal arts education is becoming more and more important. Andrew Needle et. al. point out that, "The modern professional needs a broad knowledge base and grounding in other cultures' history, political structure, and arts. These cultural references allow one to effectively navigate different social environments while understanding cultural subtleties" (114). It is safe to say that not too many science students have the opportunity to learn this type of knowledge if they are solely exposed to science courses. Perhaps this is one of the main reasons that SFU moved towards the WQB requirements, in hopes of producing higher quality professionals.
This project gave the art students had the opportunity to work in a scientific laboratory while the science students had a chance to explore their artistic skills. According to the professors involved by the end of the project this lead to many students considering incorporating some form of the opposite discipline into their studies. This is a successful initiative in the move towards having students acquire a more broad knowldge in order to be successful in the world. It allowed the students to become more creative and versatile. Which is important to many disciplines of work whether they are at a scientific level or an arts level. I believe that this project displays the necessity, reward and importance to producing an education that is equally balanced in the science and the arts, as opposed to focusing only on one disipline. The authors of the article so beautifuly put it when speaking of their project and how it "broke down academic barriers in different disciplines and (the students) learned social skills specific to their future professions" (119). Skills that deveopled because of their interdisciplinary experience.
Do you think that all universities should take initiative and implement some type of course that allows science and art disciplines to come together in one course? Would you register in a course like that?
Works Cited:
Needle, A., et. al. "Combining Art and Science in "Arts and Sciences" Education." College Teaching. v. 55 no. 3 (Summer 2007) : 114-119. Wilson Web. Simon Fraser U Lib. 5 Nov. 2007
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5 comments:
I think these types of courses would be beneficial - and obviously from this article they have proven to be!
For them to truly work and not be more of a novelty course that one takes one semester and forgets about in subsequent courses that are solely arts or science. If there were more ongoing courses like this that could really help to expand the type of education a student is getting, this could turn out to be very fruitful. So, to reap the benefits there would have to be more than one course.
That said, would I take a course like that? I'm not sure. I would like to say I would, but I think there is a certain comfort in staying within the bounds of one's own faculty that is very alluring. This is not to say I don't think I could benefit from using my brain in ways that an arts education does not challenge. Perhaps, instead of implementing courses that are equal in arts and science, there should be aspects from sciences infused into arts degrees and vice versa.
However, if people are taking these simply to be regarded as "higher quality professionals" - as people are if they are taking WQB requirements because they are forced - will they learn or simply go through the motions to get the grade? This again brings me back to this difficult idea of respecting education that both Nathan and Kristina have explored.
As someone who is taking a combined section class now, (two disciplines-same room), I can say that this type of approach is not always positve. It is my experience that this method can lead to a degeneration of standards. Neither discipline casn be discussed at an elevated level because neither group has the skill set necessary to engage in the other's field. However, while the English students merely lack the theory to undersatnd some of the more complicated social science topics, the social science students lack the vocabular, grammar, writing and presentation skills to properly study the novels for the course. These are all students who are too far in their academic studies at SFU to be forced to comply with the new regulations. I wonder if my experience would have been different if I had taken this class three years from now? Honestly, I doubt it. There are still ways to obtain your "W" credit without having to take liberal arts courses. The skills learned in an arts-based education are not attained by quasi-studies in scientific fusion. Science will always push the arts to the margins, and therfore the lettered scholar must gard against the degeneration of their field and not allow such "fusions" to occur when a dispilinary standard has not yet been achieved.
Kristina
Ok, so is something like SFU's breadth requirements the solution? If the two cannot be taught in conjunction at an acceptable level without alienating one of the groups then would mandatory, discipline-specific courses be the answer? ie. making science students take English or English majors take science? Each would certainly have its merits in creating a well rounded scholar.
Now the storm-cloud. Can anyone else stand being in a second year English class with business students fulfilling their English requirement? Lord knows I can't. It is like me when I took business and ranted about ethics to the deaf ears of 30 other students. How do we bridge the gap? Can we offer a science for English majors? Or an English for Bio majors? I don't want to burn a lonely candle in the window just to pay lip service to the name of "tolerance." Academic segregation...that's my solution.
I agree with molly, that as long as a course such as the example here was not seen as 'forced', as long as students felt like they actually had somewhat of a choice as to what they were taking, this would be a great experience. This type of course allows a student to actually recall past semesters' worth of information, and I know it would make me feel like I had learned useful concepts.
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