La Salle’s New Integrative Studies Program:
Bridging Disciplines to Seek New Solutions

“If you want to stop AIDS,” said Marjorie Allen, Director of La Salle University’s new Integrative Studies Program, “you need biology, chemistry, sociology, communication, and other areas to understand all sides of the issue.”

Integrative Studies, created last spring within La Salle’s School of Arts and Sciences, offers several interdisciplinary minors, partners with other universities and Philadelphia public schools, and seeks to integrate academic disciplines, people, and approaches to complex problems, such as AIDS, world hunger, and drug addiction.

Allen stressed the importance of knowing a discipline and the use of the Integrative Studies program to complement a major. “You can’t do anything unless you know a discipline. Students should also then be able to go beyond their discipline and solve problems. That is how the real world works.” The program will craft together new ways for students to imagine how the liberal arts relate to real-world problems and solutions.

For example, said Allen, an addiction course next semester could be taught in more than a biology class. For world hunger, you could look at economic and nutrition factors. For studying the world’s dependency on oil, a geography class could look at the effects on the earth; an economics class could examine the correlation between supply and demand, and a history class could look at the wars fought over it.

“The Department of Integrative Studies will complement the existing liberal arts majors, offer creative opportunities for liberal arts faculty, and open the liberal arts to a new generation of students,” Allen said.

Integrative Studies will continue, reintroduce, or initiate several programs as minors, including Leadership and Global Understanding; Women’s Studies; Forensic Science; Ethnic Studies; Peace and Justice Studies. The new department will also design courses, which could be offered in more than one of these minors. Faculty will be encouraged to collaborate with each other in research and teaching, through grants for first-time collaborators, and the creation of faculty interest groups, said Allen.

“This new department provides a concrete expression of our commitment to keeping the barriers low among disciplines within our School as well as among the various academic schools in the university,” said Thomas Keagy, Dean of La Salle’s School of Arts and Sciences. “These efforts will strengthen the University’s commitment to excellence in teaching and scholarship by promoting stronger cooperation across disciplines and creating new opportunities for faculty and students to work together at the boundaries of disciplines where the most important and most exciting new discoveries are taking place.”

Keagy added, “Marjorie Allen has a strong record of developing new interdisciplinary programs and most recently has served as co-director of the Leadership and Global Understanding program.  Her enthusiasm and creativity will complement her knowledge of the University and the community it serves in the formative years of this department.”

La Salle will partner with other universities, which will enable La Salle students to take courses that La Salle doesn’t offer, such as African-American Studies.

Philadelphia public schools are also partnering with La Salle. La Salle will provide student mentors for Grover Washington, Jr. Middle School students. Through the Dual Enrollment program, Central High School and Germantown High School seniors will take classes at La Salle.

“We’re really excited to have them,” Allen said. “The program brings in very, very smart high school students,” Allen said. 

The high school seniors will take three courses at La Salle - one solely for  high school students that will tie in what they learn in their other classes, which can differ depending on the student’s interest, such as from Psychology and Financial Planning to Biology and Spanish to English and Public Speaking.

Because of their course load, Allen said they’ll be more integrated into La Salle’s campus. “They’re actually becoming citizens of La Salle,” Allen said. “The idea is integration, integrating urban and suburban, high school and college lifestyles, breaking down barriers that are in place.”

Allen is an Associate Professor of English at La Salle, and in 2005 received La Salle’s Distinguished Faculty Service Award, primarily for her work in the University’s Academic Discovery Program, which counsels students who have the potential to succeed in college but do not meet the University’s normal entrance requirements. She is also one of the three co-directors for La Salle’s minor in Leadership and Global Understanding, created in 2003.

--Ed Mahon