At Wesleyan, a “college” is basically another word for a major, usually one composed of as many cross-disciplinary approaches as its wide and deeply resourced undergraduate course catalogue will permit. With the College of Design and Engineering Studies (CoDES), the university hopes to fill a need that has been long felt:
“We realized that there is a hunger from the students for this … it made sense to develop this college to provide a headspace and physical space for people who want to work at the intersection of all these different areas.”
Francis Starr, Foss Professor of Physics and one of the creators of the program
“At its core, we are interested in hands-on course work—learning through making. That is central to the studio model and to our engineering curriculum,” said Elijah Huge, associate professor of art and director of CoDES. “It will also be a fantastic hub for talking about questions of technology … how we, as humans, interface and interact with technology as makers.”
As news begins to trickle in about the new college program, it is becoming clear that it is primarily a “linked” major that goes by the acronym IDEAS, (Integrated Design, Engineering, Arts and Society). A linked major is different from a double major in that it minimizes the number of additional courses required to fulfill both majors and apparently, one cannot graduate with a linked major alone. IDEAS is divided into tracks that match up with specific external or primary majors like Physics, Biology, Computer Science, Studio Art and Theater. Those tracks are:
Biomedical Engineering (linked with Biology) Computation (linked with CS) Electrical Engineering (linked with Physics) Mechanical and Materials Engineering (Physics) Object Design (linked with Studio Art) Spatial Design (linked with Theater)
In addition, there is the Bachelors in Engineering track which curates the Wesleyan prerequisites for Dartmouth College’s dual degree, a five-year program, and the only track (at the moment) culminating in an ABET approved engineering degree. Here’s the link to a CC discussion related to the Dartmouth program:
My rough, back-of-the-envelope, estimate is that they would have to hire at a minimum, eight additional professors (assuming each one teaches the minimum load of 2 courses per semester that Wesleyan tenure-track, STEM profs tend to) to cover the 16 courses that Dartmouth ostensibly offers during the two years LAC students spend pursuing its B.E dual degree. That sounds like a lot of profs.
True. Though Smith College, with somewhat, but not significantly, smaller enrollment seems to get away with it. But they have a roughly 2.5 billion endowment, and that extra billion helps. Let’s see where Wes is after this current campaign, which I expect will blow the doors off of its 600 million goal. And demand. There is a fair amount of academic infrastructure already there and waiting that would be complimentary to an engineering curriculum.
This would put additional “practical” in Wesleyan’s tag line of practical idealism.
