University of Notre Dame - Dome Yearbook (Notre Dame, IN)

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THE NEW SHAPE OF ACADEMICS IN otre Dame is expanding and specializing at a rate that belies the steady yearly turn- over of 1500 students. In the University ' s pace, there is a maddening movement, for the student who lacks orientation. A growing consciousness of the dangers of misdirection underlies a series of developing interrelationships. Though under separate deans, the colleges are increasingly interdependent. This year engineering students began taking the collegiate seminar reading program. Significantly, there are no separate engineering sections, but a scattering of the engineering students among the existing sections, with the corresponding addition of teachers from the engi- neering college specially prepared to teach the regular sections. The engineering major who finds he would like to explore the humanities even more deeply can join the com- bination program and graduate in five years with both the A.B. and B.S.E. Another ex- ample of interaction between colleges is the business school ' s six-year program in con- junction with the law school, resulting in a business degree in the fifth year and the law degree in the sixth. The information explo- sion in all fields has expanded the compu- ter ' s application beyond the scientists and engineers to include experiments in mar- keting and political science. No college stands by itself. While 150 arts and letters intents have been exposed to an improved, conceptual approach to modern science in the new unified science program, and more are taking advanced courses in the science college than in pre- vious years, business students take almost half their courses in the arts and letters as part of their approach. Corresponding to a growing interdependence among the four colleges is a new intra- dependence within each college. Initiating a regular-year master ' s program injected a new dynamism into the language department. Expansion has spurred increasing inter- est in the various area studies programs, combining courses from almost all the arts and letters disciplines. Though not directly related, the sophomore year abroad his similar- ly involved a general education in the culture of another area. While the number of fresh- men competing for Innsbruck has dropped from two years ago, a program of studies in France began this year and next year a small group will study in Japan. The department of engineering science, to teach its majors the analysis, synthesis, and design of systems in traditional and newly emerging fields as aerospace engineering and operations re- ND-SMC RELATIONSHIPS ARE DECIDEDLY ONE- SIDED AT THE ACADEMIC LEVEL