Cluster Programs: About the Cluster Programs

Interdisciplinary Cluster Programs are a central feature of the “Making Connections” curriculum implemented in 2006. As one of the two means of satisfying the junior- and senior-level Supplemental Education requirements that apply to all B.A. majors in the College, Cluster Programs provide an “integrative” interdisciplinary experience by approaching a single theme or object of study from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. Students pursuing one of the cluster options will take the “core” course required of all students in the cluster and two other courses that complement the core course. The courses need not be taken in any particular order, though the faculty designing the clusters strongly encourage students to take the core course as the first in the sequence. The three courses must come from at least two divisions of the College, and no more than one of the three courses may be counted simultaneously in a student's primary major, second major, or minor.

There is no need to “declare” a Cluster Program in the way that students declare a minor or a major; the degree audit system will simply recognize the clusters as part of the General Education degree requirements, and once a student has taken three courses (including the “core”) from an approved cluster, the Supplemental Education requirement will be satisfied. There is no penalty for changing Cluster Programs and no deadline for entering a Cluster Program.

Cluster Programs will pass into and out of existence, but any Cluster Program listed on this web page will operate at least through spring 2010. Terminal dates will be indicated clearly on the page describing each cluster; if no terminal date is indicated,  the assumption is that the Cluster will operate indefinitely.

Currently there are eleven cluster programs from which to choose:

• Border Crossings
• Defining Difference/Creating Dialogue
• Evolution
• Food Cultures
• Global Environmental Change
• Human Rights
• Knowledge at the Crossroads: Religious & Scientific Cultures of the Middle Ages & the Renaissance
• Medicine and Culture
• Renaissance Literature, Art, and Music
• War, Revolution, and Culture: Transatlantic Perspectives, 1750-1850
• The World Wars: Experience, Memory, Legacy

 

*The four Divisions of the College of Arts and Sciences, with their abbreviations:

Humanities [HM]
Fine Arts [FA]
Social and Behavioral Sciences [SS]
Natural Sciences and Mathematics [NS]