According to Melnick, the
multi-disciplinary center has filled a vacuum in the study of
biology since it opened four years ago as a consortium of Columbia,
the American Museum of Natural History, the New York Botanical
Garden, the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Wildlife
Preservation Trust International.
After the merger of Columbia's
zoology and biology departments into the molecular and cellular
biological sciences in 1966, the study of organismal and
evolutionary biology began to diminish. The current concern about
conservation and ecosystems, however, has led to its reemergence
and recent expansion into a multi-disciplinary field of
study.
CERC is just one example of
multi-disciplinarity in the Columbia curriculum, which is
constantly changing in an effort to meet the needs and wants of
students. This trend is far from new -- Contemporary Civilization
led the way in interdepartmental cooperation back in
1919.
"Many of our best graduate students
are impatient with too rigid barriers to intellectual exchange
across discipline lines. And interesting trends at graduate and
faculty educational levels come to be reflected in undergraduate
majors," said Ruggles Professor of Political Science Ira
Katznelson '66. "Reciprocally, new initiatives at the
undergraduate level tend to inform subsequent patterns of graduate
training."
"The new environmental science major
taps into a real interest on the part of students," said Melnick,
who once lived for two years in a wet temperate forest in the
foothills of the Himalayas in order to study populations of monkeys
and spends part of every year on some sort of jungle expedition.
"Health and environment is a huge growth area. We need a huge army,
heavily armed with knowledge, to go out and make this work to
protect our biological heritage."
CERC majors engage in required
summer research internships that take them to places as far as
Brazil, Indonesia, Kenya (to study blue monkeys) and the coast of
Madagascar (to study whales), and as close as the American Museum
of Natural History's insect collection.
Another new interdisciplinary major
for students interested in the environmental field lies in the
department of earth and environmental sciences, formerly the
geology department. Undergraduate majors no longer study the earth
as biology, geology and oceanic science; instead, courses are
designed to treat the earth as a single system. "We are
intentionally blurring disciplines," said Professor of Earth and
Environmental Sciences James Hays.
Internships are available at
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Goddard Institute for Space
Studies and other institutions. Hays said students are encouraged
to spend a summer or a semester at Biosphere 2 to study desert
processes, climate and local biology. Originally designed as a
sustainable environment, Columbia took over the administration of
the Arizona facility to use as an educational and research
facility.
The number of interdisciplinary
majors, as listed in the College Bulletin, has grown from four in
1968-69 to 24 in 1998-99. The economics department, for example,
offers joint majors in economics-operations research,
economics-political science, economics-mathematics,
economics-statistics and economics-philosophy.
The newest interdisciplinary major
is French and Francophone studies, which deals with the literature
and culture of the world's French-speaking areas, including issues
of colonization, decolonization and race. "It represents a
collaboration with colleagues in history and political science,"
said French department chair Pierre Force. "It's a true
interdisciplinary program, not the subject of French."