Contact:
Eric Sloss
412-268-5765

For immediate release:
March 30, 2006

Backgrounder: Carnegie Mellon School of Architecture Creates Course To Encourage Cross-Disciplinary, Real-World Experiences

PITTSBURGH—Carnegie Mellon University's School of Architecture has created an academic course called "Passport," a university-wide, interdisciplinary offering designed to encourage and facilitate student engagement in events throughout the college, the university and the city of Pittsburgh. The course, implemented last fall, provides students with the opportunity to attend lectures, workshops, exhibits, films, readings and performances sponsored by Carnegie Mellon or other institutions in Pittsburgh that stimulate a relationship between a student's academic pursuits and real-world experience.

"Passport" can be taken as a yearlong or single-semester course. Students select the type and schedule of the events they attend from a list of more than 100 happenings across the region. They are required to keep a journal of their "Passport" experience and attend small discussion sessions.

"In the first two semesters of 'Passport' I have been thrilled with the results," said Dee Briggs, adjunct professor in the School of Architecture and course facilitator. "As the second semester of this yearlong course began, the students were asking for increased discussion time and the addition of supplemental readings. The discussion sessions are typically dynamic and stimulating, often beginning with a student's description of a "Passport" event or experience and then leading to conversations about larger issues, like the relationship between creative work and its intended context and how its meaning changes when removed from that context, or the implications of film as a global medium of social, political or economic information."

During its first semester, "Passport" attracted 50 students from seven disciplines and departments, representing the schools of Art, Design, Architecture and Computer Science, the Bachelor of Humanities and Arts program and the College of Humanities and Social Sciences (H&SS). The students' grade levels ranged from sophomore to Ph.D. candidate.

"As a person still entirely unsure of his major, 'Passport' really offers me a way to legitimize my department-hopping tendencies and it gives me a way to justify exploring other majors," said H&SS student Connor Sites-Bowen. He said he enjoys the biweekly "unstructured chats about culturally relevant material."

The primary goal of "Passport" is to engage students in contemporary ideas and debates, and support interdisciplinary work and discourse. Students who participate in "Passport" will strengthen their critical thinking skills and continue their development and interest in scholarship, research, practice and creative production.

"The topics the students want to discuss as a result of attending various lectures, performances, films and readings are consistently engaging and thoughtful. I believe that the experience gained through this course will have a lasting impact on the way students engage in work across disciplines during their academic and professional lives," said Briggs.

The School of Architecture is one of five schools within Carnegie Mellon's College of Fine Arts, a community of nationally and internationally recognized artists and professionals organized into Architecture, Art, Design, Drama and Music, and their associated centers and programs.

For more information on "Passport" visit www.arc.cmu.edu/passport or call 412-268-6390. For more information on the College of Fine Arts, contact Eric Sloss at 412-268-5765.