|
I am delighted to welcome you to New College. A recent arrival to the campus myself, I have been impressed by the excellence of the faculty and staff and their commitment to our distinctive mission: preparing students to succeed in an increasingly global and multi-faceted 21st-century marketplace.
Embracing Arizona State University’s vision of the New American University, New College educates students to succeed in a globalized, diverse, sustainable economy by providing them with solid disciplinary foundations coupled with an ability to think and act constructively across disciplines in order to discover answers to the complex problems that face society today and to create civic and economic well being, from local to global contexts.
The distinctive majors and programs at New College have, from their inception, sought to enhance students’ understanding and appreciation of the way phenomena connect and interrelate. This approach to understanding our world—from human institutions and systems, to biological organisms, to cultural artifacts, and more—gives students the ability to grapple effectively with the challenges they will encounter in their lives, from developing sustainable environments, to curing disease, to managing our growing metropolis, to creating new forms of artistic expression, to enhancing appreciation for human diversity.
The currently existing programs at New College all build on this philosophy that inter-, multi-, and transdisciplinary education enhances our graduates’ ability both to address the needs of business, industry, schools, and communities of this region and to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century.
But it’s not only in the classroom that we endorse the value of interdisciplinarity. At the heart of our educational mission is making connections, and the physical cohesion of the campus creates a laboratory for connection. Today’s student and tomorrow’s successful professional and productive citizen faces complex problems and challenges that will require this ability to connect, to partner with others, to understand interrelationships among phenomena, and to find solutions by integrating knowledge and experience across their entire range of experience. Connection begins in the classroom as we pursue relationships between and among disciplines, colleges, and schools, but it extends to exploring and understanding the connections between curricular study and extracurricular activities, between academic programs and residence life, between the classroom and the workplace, and between the campus and the community.
I hope you will join us on this important journey.
Elizabeth Langland, Ph.D.
Vice President, ASU at West Campus and
Dean, New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences
|
|
