More Interdisciplinary Degree Programs Planned for FAS, KSG

As if 10 schools and dozens of degrees programs weren't enough, Harvard has begun to add inter-school graduate programs to its bevy of offerings.

A new Ph.D. program is likely to be approved at the March Faculty meeting. The new degree, available either in social policy and government or social policy and sociology, is a joint endeavor of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the Kennedy School of Government (KSG).

According to David T. Ellwood, Littauer Professor of Political Economy, the KSG is "cautiously optimistic" that the degree will receive the go-ahead, having cleared the hurdle of Faculty Council approval.

In addition, the University's Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality and Social Policy, a training program for Ph.D. candidates in traditional disciplines like economics and government, has received a $2.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation.

Like the increasing number of interdisciplinary research centers, these programs aim to innovate by combining existing disciplines.

"The excitement and energy of multidisciplinary study [come from] interesting questions coming from outside of the discipline," Ellwood says. He insisted that such joint programs are "not trying to make people any less good at their discipline, but to take people that are going to be first rate within their discipline and try to broaden their perspectives."

The growing movement towards interdisciplinary and inter-school degree programs has been prompted by the impressive assortment of faculty working across disciplines.

The Afro-American Studies Department is itself looking to create a Ph.D. program. That program had originally been scheduled to open to students this fall, but has since tentatively postponed until the fall of 1999.