Description

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  June 2005 SIMSMC
     Participants
     Module 1
     Module 2

  June 2004 SIMSMC
     Participants
     Module 1
     Module 2

  June 2003 SIMSMC
     Participants
     Module 1
     Module 2
     Comments

  June 2002 SIMSMC
     Participants
     Module 1
     Module 2
     Comments

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The Summer Institute in Materials Science and Material Culture is a two-week summer program at MIT. We offer this program to faculty at liberal arts colleges around the country, and we anticipate that the participants will represent a broad spectrum of fields in science, social science, and humanities.

The Summer Institute is designed to introduce engineering -- specifically, materials science and engineering -- to liberal arts curricula. Working with faculty from liberal arts institutions, we plan to demonstrate how their teaching can incorporate the subject matter of materials science in imaginative and intellectually stimulating ways congruent with and relevant to the pursuits of their own disciplines.

The faculty who offer the SIMSMC have had outstanding success in designing undergraduate courses at MIT that combine materials science and engineering with archaeology and archaeological science. We will share our experience in teaching materials science and material culture as one example of effective multidisciplinary education that includes engineering at its core.

A liberal education in the 21st century has to equip young people with an interest in and an exposure to engineering as an endeavor that affects so many aspects of our lives. Materials science and engineering in particular offers many points of contact with the subject matter and the intellectual formation provided by other academic disciplines. The SIMSMC gives participants an opportunity to consider how they can expand the compass of their teaching to equip students with the range of perspectives and tools that only a liberal education provides.