One of the great joys of working on the NYU Abu Dhabi project has been not only the chance to work with superb colleagues (who ever heard of actually looking forward to weekly two-hour long university committee meetings?), but also the chance to think outside of the disciplinary and institutional boxes into which we all find ourselves confined more often than not. Sometimes the boxes are created by strange NYU traditions or inter-school rivalries: undergraduate creative writing on the Square, for example, is limited to fiction, poetry, and occasionally creative non-fiction. Journalistic writing? That belongs to the Journalism department. Screenwriting or playwriting? Those belong to Tisch. It won’t be that way at NYU Abu Dhabi.
Sometimes, however, the boxes are the result of settled disciplinary scholarly and pedagogical practice. NYUAD has given my colleagues and me the opportunity to rethink our disciplinary approaches and to emphasize both interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches. So the NYUAD literature major has no equivalent at NYUNY: reflecting the fact that NYUAD will be a U.S. liberal college offering instruction in English but located in Abu Dhabi, our literature major is a program that might be described as “world literature in English or English translation, with an Anglophone emphasis.” The NYUAD history major is organized not around national traditions but rather around oceans, highlighting international and transnational political, social, economic, and cultural exchanges. Its philosophy major emphasizes the history of philosophy — and the philosophy of the Arabic and Islamic worlds — far more than its counterpart in the Square.
The scientists have rethought their curriculum as well. They’ve created a sequence of courses called “Foundations of Science” that acknowledges “the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of modern scientific research” and breaks down the traditional boundaries among introductory courses. Here’s how they describe it: “Instead of the traditional series of discipline-specific introductory courses, Foundations integrates basic concepts from Biology, Brain and Cognitive Science, Chemistry Computer Science, Mathematics and Physics in a demanding-three semester sequence.”
The arts curriculum is a work-in-progress, but it seems likely that it well provide opportunities for students to integrate theory and practice. A student majoring in art, for example, might well study both art history and studio art. We’ll see how it develops.
If you’re interested in knowing more about the NYUAD’s curriculum, you can download a PDF entitled Preview of Academic Programs, 2010-11.
I’m very interested in rethinking various aspects of pedagogical practice, not only in colleges and universities, but also in secondary schools. Too often, I think, our schools stifle creativity and create a culture in which intellectual work comes to seem like drudgery.
A well-known argument along these lines has been offered by Sir Ken Richardson. Take a look at this brief talk, given four years ago, at one of the TED conferences. I like, in particular, the anecdote with which Sir Ken concludes his talk.
Prof Patell.
” to move to think”
How important is this analogy! I found really interesting Sir Ken’s talk. Even though it might be too focused in the north american education system. I am from Argentina and the education system there is focused in the utility aspect Sir ken describes. It is very frustrating the fact education gets reduced to achieve a certain number that is supposed to measure your sucess. My Psicology teacher always used to complain about the fact that the current systems of education are based in the use of memory as a way of learning, when it is prooved that memory is not effective at all in this process. I do not share Plato’s main views however I like the conception of education he presents in the Republic. I believe education is the path we follow in order to achieve the develop the capacities we all have (or the potential ones). That is why human creativity is so important! There are many ways of learning includding the ones provided by things such as art, experience, conversation (dialectic), suffering, etc. If we limit ourselves to learn from certain books we are limiting the main features that make us human at an emotional, rational and creative level , therefore we are limiting ourselves as human beings.
When Sir Ken refers to education as the path that lead us to the unkown it reminded me to what Borges says in his tale “The Library of Babel”. I strongly recomend its reading!
In my opinion education impplies a challenge to authority, a challenge to this hierarchy established. It impplies to observe the posibility we can be wrong!
Prof Patell do you think we can build a system that allow us to do this? I am looking forward to listen to your ideas!
Thanks!
One of the ideas that’s most appealing to me in contemporary theories of cosmopolitanism is fallibilism, the principle that human beings are imperfect and prone to error. We have an obligation to engage in conversations with others in which we we are willing to have our minds changed — about ideas that may be close to our hearts — because it is possible that those with whom we are conversing will have a better account than we do. Anthony Appiah has an excellent discussion of this principle in his book Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers.