Brandeis students are enthusiastic about the introduction of the new International and Global Studies (IGS) program here.Faculty members gave their final approval to the establishment of an IGS program last spring. According to the program's Web site, the IGS Program is "an interdisciplinary approach of examining politics, economics, culture, society, the environment, and many other facets of our lives."

IGS was designed to replace and build upon Brandeis' existing International Studies (IS) program. According to the University Bulletin, the IS program was "designed to familiarize students with the basic characteristics of the international system." The IS Program allowed students to concentrate on a particular area or topic relevant to the international community. Students in the class of 2006 are the last able to graduate with IS on their diplomas; after 2006, the program goes off the books officially.

According to IGS Chair Gregory Freeze (HIST), former Provost Mel Bernstein and former Dean of Arts and Sciences Jessie Ann Owens originally conceived of the idea for a new major in the area of globalization.

"We have all these faculty members doing different pieces of globalization but we didn't have anything that put them together for a student," Freeze said. "The idea," he added, "was to have a new concentration which is capable of reflecting the faculty we have and utilizes in more efficient ways the resources we already have."

According to Professor George Ross (POL), in July 2002, a committee of six professors met for a few days to design a globalization program that would be "more innovative than [Brandeis'] competitors."

After this initial meeting, a second interdisciplinary committee was established, with Ross and Freeze as the co-chairs. "We created a team from very different focuses who all had a relation to the topic of globalization," Ross said. "Being interdisciplinary at Brandeis is quite complicated and very innovative because of how Brandeis is so compartmentalized."

Twenty faculty members, many of whom served on the original committee, then became part of the faculty seminar organized last fall to help plan the curriculum for the introductory IGS course.

This introductory course, IGS 10a, is required for both the IGS major and minor. This semester is the first time the course has been offered; 105 students are enrolled.

"We are trying to bring in outside experts to give specialized lectures," Ross said. Some members from the faculty seminar, including Freeze, have already given guest lectures. Ross hopes to have high profile scholars, such as Robert Reich, come to the classroom in the fall.

"IGS 10a provides a platform for all your advanced specialization as well as a broader knowledge of what the other specializations are," Freeze said "Ideally it should be taken your first or second year."

The IGS 10a curriculum, like the IGS major, is divided into six components: Cultures, Identities and Encounters, Global Economy, Global Environment, Global Governance, Global Media and Communications and Inequalities and Poverty. When declaring an IGS major, students are required to choose one of the six specializations or to design their own after consultation and approval from the faculty executive committee. Students are required to take four classes within their specialization.

The classes available under each specialization, Freeze said, "draw on our existing resources...and fit the concentration's profile." Freeze said that the program is designed in such a way that there are enough classes offered to fulfill the specialization requirements in one year. Next year there will be 10 classes in the Cultures and Identities specialization and seven in the Global Economy group.

There are additional requirements for the IGS major. All students are required to take three core courses: Economics 8b, Politics 15a and Anthropology 1a. Students must also take two courses outside of their specialization and one foreign language class above the University requirement.

The most distinct aspect of the major is that students must either study abroad or complete a relevant internship. While some interdisciplinary programs already contain an internship option and certain majors include an aspect of practicum, this is the first concentration at Brandeis where major-related experience away from Brandeis is such a central component.

The requirement to do either an internship or study abroad, "illustrates the emphasis on applied experimental learning," Freeze said. Students are strongly encouraged to study abroad in their foreign language concentration to make that language functional. "We especially wanted to push languages given the fact that languages have been downplayed in the Brandeis curriculum," Ross said.

Freeze said that the creation of the IGS program is part of a process "to really make a global community inside Brandeis." The IGS major is "really cutting edge and gives you an international and very current interpretation of the world that purely international relations programs lack," he added.

Ross emphasized the culture component of Brandeis' program, which he said does not exist in similar programs at other schools.

Freeze said there was a "great deal of enthusiasm amongst the faculty" during the creation of the IGS program. There are 42 faculty members teaching various courses that are listed under the specializations, and Ross said that over time, he hopes the repertoire will expand.

Currently, there are 21 declared IGS Majors. Freeze said that many of these people are double majors. Sophomores, however, are not required to declare a major until the end of this semester, and often, said Freeze, students wait until April. He said he is expecting more students to declare an IGS Studies Major later in the spring, especially considering the large enrollment in IGS 10a of freshman and sophomores this semester.

IGS appeals to students from many disciplines. Zoe Lieberman '06 is a pre-med student planning on majoring in both IGS and biology. "The IGS program gives me the chance to take humanities classes that otherwise would not fit into the pre-med program," Lieberman said.

The goals of the IGS Major are being realized by many students, including Omer Rosenhand '06, who said "the IGS major broadens perspectives across virtually all disciplines as globalization increasingly becomes the way of our world.