The interdisciplinary curriculum

LIKE THE PROGRAMS of the United Nations, interdisciplinary courses offer obvious advantages in theory but in practice often founder on political realities. Sometimes they also work well. Following the analogy, the interdisciplinary idea appears to work most successfully when applied outside the sphere of influence of the science department, that is, in courses for the “nonscientist.” But the situation is more difficult with joint introductory courses for science majors; for these courses are besieged with the possessive instincts of science departments toward their majors and with the narrow curricular views of the separate disciplines. Not surprisingly, perhaps, physics departments have, in many instances, stood out as the “hard line” department. Their rigorous view of what students should learn has left course developers with a disciplinary lump in the interdisciplinary amalgam.

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