Faculty Discuss Interdisciplinary Offerings

Perhaps the best way to study a novel is to discuss it alongside its historical context. Perhaps certain topics in science require a discussion of their relationship to philosophy. Recently, some faculty members, especially those in the history department, have begun asking such questions and considering the potential benefits of interdisciplinary courses at Exeter.Interdisciplinary courses, which combine study in two or more subject areas to provide students with an understanding of the broader applications of a topic, are already available to students at peer schools such as Hotchkiss and Lawrenceville.At Hotchkiss, freshmen and sophomores take Humanities, a year-long course in the arts, English, history, philosophy and religion, with each subject area taught by a different instructor, but made up of content connecting with the other disciplines.Similarly, Lawrenceville has a significant interdisciplinary studies program, requiring two interdisciplinary credits prior to graduation.History instructor Clinton Williams said that some faculty members have already incorporated interdisciplinary elements in their courses and that interest in the topic is growing.“I’ve been trying to get a guest in for a day that will add a new perspective with more knowledge than I could have in a certain area,” Williams said. “It would be interesting to see the school take a more official approach,” he said, also noting that many of the newer members of the History department have experience with interdisciplinary courses, “so you have that idea growing quite a bit.”History instructor Erik Wade highlighted the benefits of interdisciplinary courses. “If I am teaching a History class, I might take concepts from anthropology and English, teaching a student in a richer manner, rather than just giving you the historical approach and going to the English department to get your English,” he said. “It’s a fuller education. [The courses] have been a part of higher education for a period of time, so it would help students in being a part of that discussion.”Williams agreed that interdisciplinary courses would increase the variety of students’ education. “Interdisciplinary courses allow you to look at one thing through the eyes of different people,” he said. “When you have a second teacher in the classroom, they’re going to ask different questions, and that’ll change how the student experiences each subject.”Science instructor Scott Saltman discussed Exeter’s current interdisciplinary offerings, which are minimal. “We do have the senior study courses, which are interdisciplinary.” These courses are considered interdisciplinary only because they don’t fit into one department specifically.However, they differ from a typical interdisciplinary course, which has two teachers with different ideas and backgrounds, as “they are only taught by one teacher from one specific background,” Saltman said.Some have questioned the practicality of interdisciplinary studies courses of this format. Saltman highlighted the financial difficulty of paying two teachers to teach twelve students.“It’s expensive to put two teachers in a classroom with twelve students and it’s not sustainable. No teacher really wants to, in the long term, put that kind of work into a course where they are not getting the teacher credit for it,” Saltman said.“I think that there are many people who want to [have these offerings], but have come up against the same constraints every time, which is who is getting credit for this,” he said.Exeter currently has no official offerings of interdisciplinary courses outside of Senior Studies, and no planned proposal has yet been discussed in faculty meetings.Yet between the discussion among faculty in various departments and the hiring of more teachers with experience in the courses, it remains a possibility for the future.“If the students become interested in it and more teachers are being hired with experience in it, I think at some point it is going to come to Phillips Exeter Academy whether it’s ready or not,” Wade said.He also suggested that they may already be more prevalent than many community members have noticed. “In many respects I think it is already occurring, but people haven’t put a name to it,” he said. “They just feel like they’re teaching, but they are using different approaches from different disciplines in order to teach their subject.”