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DECEMBER 2004

50 years of Dual Degree Program:
President Lee Bollinger
By Joan Baum, Ph.D.

(L-R) Dr. Ismar Schorsch, Chancellor, of JTS; Dr. Shuly Schwartz, Dean, List College; Peter Awn, Dean, School of General Studies, Columbia University; Dr. Lee Bollinger, President, Columbia University

Articulating Columbia University's reasons for having initiated a dual degree program through its School of General Studies with Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS), and his hope for further and extended collaboration, Columbia University president, Lee C. Bollinger speaks eloquently about the arrangement's providing “deep intellectual and religious experiences” for Columbia and JTS students and being a model for higher education in general at a time of apparent “increasing secularization on American campuses, both public and private.” Sensitive to concerns expressed in some quarters about faith-based initiatives, President Bollinger acknowledges that some voices in higher education today are uneasy about too close an accommodation between religion and the public sphere, but no one could be more alert to this issue than President Bollinger, whose numerous scholarly publications include the highly regarded Eternally Vigilant: Free Speech in the Modern Era (University of Chicago Press, 2001), Images of a Free Press, also published by the University of Chicago in 1991, The Tolerant Society: Freedom of Speech, and Extremist Speech in America published by Oxford University Press in 1986.

The President also teaches a first amendment undergraduate course each fall on Freedom of Speech and Press (enrollment 150 and growing) and notes that “students are hungry for this.” He feels that those who worry about possible conflicts between religious and secular instruction need not ignore faith. “Most people manage to live with a combination of intellectual commitment to Western discourse and deep belief about God and religion,” he points out, though for sure tension can mark public debate; all the more reason for bringing such conversations into the classroom and to promote the Columbia / JTS dual-degree program. Indeed, the reason for the institution of the program in 1953 was to be a “bridge” between two worlds often considered inconsistent. Now, more than ever, this mission needs to be understood and supported, it's not just an “abstract “ idea.

The program has been “spectacularly successful,” he says, as measured by increasing interest and by the reports of the current students and alums who spoke at the program's recent fifty-year celebration and cited not only “intellectual stimulation” but social bonding. “Why wouldn't students want to be exposed to experiences that would enrich their lives outside the classroom?” the President asks. As for attracting more students and perhaps involving other institutions and other faiths in a similar program, he's thinking about it, constrained, of course, by the eternal problems plaguing all institutions of higher education today: money, housing, space (tuition is higher for the Columbia-JTS program than for other interdisciplinary arrangements). Lee Bollinger is also still relatively new, having assumed the presidency of Columbia only two years ago (the University's 19th leader). But he is also on the faculty of the Law School and is interested in considering ways in which courses in law, for example, might be added to the program.  Most undergraduates, he ventures, are largely unfamiliar with legal issues common to, and potentially divisive in, religious and secular education. There's “extensive, untapped knowledge in legal institutions” that would be attractive to students in the dual degree program. The president draws an important distinction, however, between the kind of dual degree program established by Columbia and JTS, which involves more credits, and interdisciplinary studies.  In general, he's a strong believer in discipline-oriented curricula, giving students a solid basis in building knowledge in research, analysis and evaluation—which is why the program requires more time to complete, including usually at least a summer session. That challenge, however, enhances the program and ensures that liberal arts and religious studies each receive full concentration.#
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