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Encouraging New Perspectives The new Kahn Liberal Arts Institute at Smith College is described by its director as "an incubator for new directions and new linkages across the Smith academic community." It is funded by a generous bequest from Louise Wolff Kahn, who graduated from Smith in 1931, and is named for her and her husband, Edmund J. Kahn. The institute began taking form well over a year ago during meetings of the faculty team involved in the college's recent self-study. The group wanted to propose an initiative that would make "a real difference to faculty at all stages of their careers at Smith and, at the same time, would bring a new dimension to Smith's academic life," says Marjorie Senechal, Louise Wolff Kahn Professor of Mathematics and director of the Program in History of the Sciences at Smith. Senechal, who was a member of the faculty self-study team, is now director of the Kahn Institute. In their discussion, she and her colleagues developed the concept of an institute that would "integrate teaching and research in a very creative way beyond the classroom," pursuing projects that will link academic departments, programs and divisions; promote intensive research collaboration among junior and senior faculty, students, visitors and alumnae; and result in symposia, performances, exhibitions and workshops that will enrich the intellectual life of the college. The Kahn Institute will offer fellowships--some very brief, some for a semester or a year--for faculty, students and visiting scholars and artists, and hopes to develop an alumnae fellowship program as well. For the first two years the institute will support one project of broad scope each year, on which Kahn fellows and others from within and outside the Smith community will work intensively. "But they don't all have to be big, blockbuster programs," Senechal says. "Some years we may have two or three smaller projects." "Exploring Ecologies of Childhood" will be the theme for the 1998-99 project. It will investigate the ways in which the sometimes conflicting "ecologies" today's children inhabit-the family (or families), the day care center, the school-are interrelated, and how success in one often depends on the adequacy of another. Seven faculty fellows from such diverse areas as psychology, education, sociology, government and religion are already at work on the project. Among their goals will be the identification of major research issues to be pursued at Smith through ongoing interdisciplinary inquiry and the creation of specific public policy recommendations designed to foster healthy child development. The project is expected to lay the groundwork for Smith to become a leader in the study of child development. The project for 1999-2000 will have a significantly different focus. Called "Star Messenger: Galileo at the Millennium," it will be a year-long investigation and celebration of the work of Galileo Galilei and his contemporaries and will involve people from many disciplines, including theater, music, history, religion and all the sciences. Says project organizer Paul Zimet of the theatre department, "At the millennium, we share with Galileo and his contemporaries the bafflement they felt when the evidence of their senses did not conform with their understanding of the world. We struggle to find alternate explanations and feel awe in the face of the beauty revealed in our new conceptions of the universe." The symposia, lectures, exhibitions and courses associated with this second institute project will culminate in the spring of 2000 with a public colloquium and performances of a music-theater work by Zimet and collaborators. Members of the Smith community who are interested in submitting proposals for Kahn Institute projects or alumnae who wish to explore the possibility of developing an alumnae fellowship program may contact Senechal at senechal@sophia. smith.edu or (413) 585-3862. For more information, you may wish to visit the institute's Web site at www.smith.edu/kahninstitute. |
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