SCIENCE IN SOCIETY PROGRAM
 
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Of Note:

New SiSP Faculty Appointments:
The Science in Society Program is pleased to announce two new faculty appointments:
Dr. Laura Stark of the National Institutes of Health will become Assistant Professor of Science in Society and Sociology, beginning July 1, 2009. Dr. Stark received her Ph.D. in Sociology from Princeton University and a post-doctoral fellowship at Northwestern University before taking her current post as a Stetten Fellow at the Office of NIH History.
Professor Gillian Goslinga of Stanford University will become Assistant Professor of Anthropology, and a member of the SiSP faculty, beginning July 1, 2009. Professor Goslinga received her Ph.D. in History of Consciousness at the University of California at Santa Cruz, and is currently a Humanities Fellow at Stanford University.


Contact Information:
Chair of the Program:
Joseph Rouse
jrouse@wesleyan.edu
(860)685-3655

Administration:
Deborah Grasso
dgrasso@wesleyan.edu
(860)685-2680

350 High Street
Middletown, CT 05459

 
 

WHAT IS THE SCIENCE IN SOCIETY PROGRAM?

Wesleyan University's Science in Society Program is an interdisciplinary undergraduate major program that encourages integrated study of the sciences and medicine as institutions, practices, material cultures, intellectual achievements, and constituents of culture and politics. Students who undertake this major combine sustained study within one or more scientific fields with work in the history, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, and feminist studies of science and medicine.

Students in the Program should gain a better understanding of the richness and complexity of scientific practices, and of the cultural and political significance of science, technology and medicine. The sciences, and scientifically sophisticated medicine and technology are, after all, among the most important and far-reaching human achievements. The sciences have dramatically transformed, and will continue to transform our lives, our ways of understanding ourselves and the world, and even our material surroundings. A better understanding of these changes, and enhanced skill at critical assessment of and response to them, is a vital dimension of a liberal arts education today.

The major program is well suited for students interested in a variety of professional and academic pursuits after graduation, since it encourages students to integrate technical scientific understanding with a grasp of the multiple contexts in which scientific knowledge is applied, and the issues at stake in its application. In recent years, graduates of the Program have gone on to advanced study in schools of medicine, public health, veterinary medicine, social work, public policy, science journalism, and others; to graduate study towards the Ph.D. in various sciences, or history, philosophy, or social studies of science; and to employment in a wide range of occupations.

Wesleyan students interested in the Program should begin at least one of the major track science course sequences during the frosh year, and otherwise undertake a broad program of study. While the Program offers some exploratory first-year courses, these normally do not count toward completion of the major. Students typically begin formal coursework in the Program itself as sophomores or juniors, after they have acquired more substantive background in the sciences and in the study of culture and society.
 

questions? email: jrouse@mail.wesleyan.edu

Science in Society Program
Wesleyan University
350 High Street
Middletown, CT 06459