Bringing It All Together

In the 2001 Ithaca College strategic plan, the development and promotion of interdisciplinary programs were listed among the College’s priorities and goals for academic program development over the next five years. With that commitment firmly in place, it is likely that IC’s interdisciplinary and outreach programs will continue to develop --- some programs striving to obtain status as minors, or even majors, and others simply pushing forward in their efforts to find common links between disciplines and communities.

"If we are going to support interdisciplinary programs within the College, let’s really do it," Scoones urges. "Let’s establish a process so that everyone can understand how you put together and fund an interdisciplinary program. Let’s get creative and really cross disciplines, where you have a physicist working with someone in literature to deliver a completely innovative course."

Jane Austen and J. Robert Oppenheimer may not be sharing a curriculum just yet; but as a more definitive strategy for advancing interdisciplinary programs begins to take shape, future IC students may learn how to split an atom and an infinitive in the very same classroom.