The General Education Pilot Program

In The Aims of Education, Alfred North Whitehead laments the disjointed learning that takes place in today's college, "the fatal disconnection of subjects which kills the vitality of our modern curriculum." In an attempt to address this issue on the freshman level, the VMI Center for General Education and Interdisciplinary Studies sponsors the Integrated Pilot Program, an interdisciplinary project that involves faculty from Math, Chemistry, History, and English. In addition to emphasizing the goals of the specific courses involved (calculus, composition, etc.), this project focuses on team-learning/team-teaching and multi-disciplinary awareness--the ability to understand how different disciplines both differ and relate. The faculty designs a common syllabus, team-teaches various parts of the courses, and develops several interdisciplinary projects. In 1995-1996, the program involved Civil Engineering students and faculty, and the integrated project was the Mark Twain Connecticut Yankee Diaries (see the link below). The 1998 program, restructured for Spring semester courses, was for freshman History majors and included intedisciplinary projects on the Shakespeare authorship question, DNA, the Kennedy assassination, and the building of the pyramids. See the link below for the 1998 GenEd Pilot Program.  The Spring 1999 GenEd Pilot Program is for majors in Chemistry and Electrical Engineering, and the integrated project studies iron manufacture in the Shenandoah Valley during the 19th century.  Later in the semester, there will be a link here to a website created by those students.

Click here to read about the General Education Mark Twain Project of 1995-1996

Click here to go to the General Education Shakespeare Project of Spring 1998

 Click here to go to the General Education Blast Furnace Project of Spring 1999

Click here to return to the Home Page for the Office of Interdisciplinary Studies, General Education, Honors, and Faculty Development

Last modified June 17, 1999