After about a century of disciplinary dividing and separating, the intellectual world abounds with efforts to cross disciplinary boundaries and integrate knowledge. Because we intend to be a place that stays fresh intellectually, I hope we will embrace that challenge at Earlham. I hope we will value broad, interdisciplinary interests in every faculty search we conduct. I believe this gives an additional, special reason for encouraging and supporting strong interdisciplinary programs at Earlham. We need to value the distinctive programs the Earlham faculty have constructed, often through years of shared effort.
Excellent programs take time and our best efforts to build.
And once students have elected a particular interdisciplinary major, we certainly need to support that program through their graduation. Offices for interdisciplinary programs will be interspersed with clusters of faculty offices. I fully support this design, and the approach should provide greater stability for interdisciplinarity programs and perhaps additional momentum. This would mean organizing some faculty appointments and some support resources around interdisciplinary programs. I also believe we need to scrutinize carefully the regular practices we have which privilege disciplinarily based departments over interdisciplinary programs.