The five interdisciplinary centers at Connecticut College are often promoted as the school’s prized possessions. Often referred to simply by their acronymic labels such as CISLA, PICA, and CAT, the programs are seen as the embodiment of interdisciplinary study, a true application of the liberal arts education.
While CISLA’s large enrollment establishes a somewhat visible presence on campus – this year’s graduating class includes more than thirty students – other, smaller centers can seem shrouded in mystery to those who are not directly involved. The Ammerman Center for Arts and Technology, or CAT, is one such center; at the start of this year, eight students were on track to receive their program certificate along with a diploma at graduation. Though this number might sound low, each CAT class has typically only held five to ten scholars since its first graduating class in 1997. What is more surprising is of those original eight, only half have decided to follow through with their projects – the other four dropped the program at different points throughout the year.
“I don’t think it’s a pattern, I think it’s a cycle,” said Libby Friedman ’80, the center’s assistant director. “Some years we have more applicants, some years fewer. I’m disappointed the other students didn’t continue, but we’re very happy about the students who have stayed with us.”
The center’s director, Ozgur Izmirli, Associate Professor of Computer Science, joined the College in 1998, but Friedman has been managing the day-to-day operations of the center since she took her post in 1996 after having graduated from the College in 1980. She is responsible for recruiting students, helping them through the center’s application process and advising them on their projects once they’ve been accepted. “I’m very much into the logistics,” said Friedman. “I ask them what they envision their final project to be, and then work backwards from there.”
When Tony Knapp ’14 arrived at Conn, he was strongly interested in technical theater, though he says “less as an artist than as a technician problem solver.” The Center for Arts and Technology seemed like a good way to merge his interest in lighting, sound and technology, so he applied and was accepted to the program during his sophomore year. However, Knapp says that he “didn’t really have anything much to do with the program until senior year, and then I kind of sat down, picked a project, and realized at some point that I was an awful artist – mainly because I’ve never been an artist.”
Though all of the interdisciplinary centers induct students during their sophomore year, CAT is different from the others in that it focuses heavily on the students’ senior year projects. Students apply with a general idea of the types of projects they might pursue, but these rough concepts are usually far removed from the projects the students end up with. Up until senior year, much of the students’ involvement in the center consists of advising, making sure that students are registering for classes that align with their own goals and the center’s requirements, and ensuring that students are getting valuable, immersive experiences through their summer internships. But “the goal and beauty of the program,” said Friedman, “is the senior year project.”
Because of so much of the work up until senior year is preparatory and does not relate directly to the students’ final projects, the weight and rigor of the yearlong assignment can come as a surprise: “When that reality hits some students, they may find that their project is no longer aligned with their interests,” explained Friedman.
During what Friedman describes as “an intensive year of independent study and research,” CAT students would come together for a weekly seminar run by Ross Morin, Assistant Professor of Film Studies. The seminar serves as a workshop, where ideas are discussed and students are given the opportunity to both present and defend their projects to a group of peers and professors. Because CAT students may come from any major and each work with a multitude of different advisors, the seminar provides some continuity among student experiences and cohesion among their projects.
However, both students who dropped and those who followed through with the program agree that the seminars tended to be extremely frustrating. “People were much more critical this year about peoples’ projects,” said Bruce Haik ’14. “The truth is a lot of time you explain your idea to the seminar, and people don’t get it but are trying to be critical at the same time. People get upset about it. I think that the advisors themselves need to be part of the seminar in some way, so you get that sort of backup for your ideas – especially early on.”
Despite this, Haik continued with the program, saying, “as we’ve approach the end I’ve become less frustrated. Most of the people quit during the first period where there was a lot of heated discussion.” For his CAT project, Haik compiled 800 pop songs from the past four years from four different genres. Using Python – a computer coding language – Haik created a running file of the lyrics from all 800 songs that he could manipulate to perform analysis, like finding out which words are most commonly used in each genre.
“You can enter a set of lyrics and it can tell you what genre those lyrics are most connected to. You might find a country songs with lyrics that are more reminiscent of rap, but because of the song’s other qualities it’s in the country genre,” explained Haik.
Haik, along with Georgia Naumann, Sara Rubino and Dan White comprise the four seniors who will be graduating as CAT scholars this may. “The four students – although we would of course like [the program] to be larger – are so solid. They’ve accomplished amazing things, they set out with goals,” said Friedman.
Friedman and Haik both described a “breakthrough” point, where students’ projects begin to take shape, and they can move through their individual studies more swiftly without having to worry about defending their ideas against criticism so adamantly. For Jake Junda ‘14, though, the breakthrough did not come soon enough:
“First and foremost, I left the program because my goals had shifted and they weren’t in line with the program,” said Junda. But Junda also expressed exasperation with the slow rate of progress that occurred as a result of having so many different sources of feedback and direction, Junda, who admits that he wasn’t “super confident” in his project to begin with, felt as though he was “being pulled in all different directions.”
Knapp echoed this sentiment, adding, “I’ve talked to people outside and inside the department – CAT is cognitive of how hard it is to make a good project. They just aren’t cognitive of a solution. If you really get your butt in gear and figure it out on your own, everyone is willing to help if you ask the right questions of the right people. But if you don’t know the right questions to ask, then dropping looks pretty good.”
“It is a problem in some ways,” said Friedman, speaking of the discrepancies between students’ individual advising and the feedback delivered through the seminar. “But in the work world – the real world – you have to wear many hats. To be getting advice from so many different people is very beneficial.
“We talk to alumni all the time who talk about the amazing training and experience [they received through CAT]. The working world is all about synthesizing information. That’s what employers are looking for – different perspectives, people who can work in a team. It’s really good training.”
Dan White considers his experience with the program to be “one of the more positive.” White came into the program with a very clear idea of what he wanted to do: create an audio-based video game for the blind. Unlike those who joined the hoping to find inspiration through the center, White approached the center with a fully-fledged concept, which he has brought to realization throughout this year.
White recognizes the intensity of the demands the center places on its students. “If I didn’t have something that I was personally invested in, I would’ve shut down on the project,” he said. “But I didn’t mind working on it late into the night, I enjoy coding and I’m visually impaired myself.”
Of the seminar, White mentioned that Professor Morin held people to high standards – more so, he believes, than in past years. Additionally, Morin “comes at things with more of an arts perspective. If you’re a technology person, that can be very jarring. He expects you to know why you’re doing something.
“We [that stayed] can really defend why we’re doing what we’re doing, and our projects are strong. But that can be a lot for people to handle if you don’t quite know what you’re doing or why you’re doing it.”
The aptly named Center for Arts and Technology seeks to provide the opportunity for students to explore how these two fields can interact and build off of one another through interdisciplinary projects that can incorporate information from any interest or realm of study. But the individualistic nature of these projects can sometimes seem at odds with the fact that CAT scholars form a cohesive unit, and are subject to the same general requirements.
This volatility is not necessarily a problem, nor is it unique to the center. Advisors will often allow and even encourage their advisees to drop an intense non-requirement – like an honors thesis – if it is no longer aligned with the student’s academic or career goals. A center that seeks to marry the intangibility of art and the rapidly progressing field of technology must be constantly adapting, always searching for new ways that these two subjects can interact, and it seems as though the Ammerman Center for Arts and Technology is doing just that. While this may not foster a nurturing academic environment like what many of us have come to expect from Conn, it instead establishes a rigorous, progressive and dynamic program that can offer a great opportunity to those with the confidence, capability and inspiration to see their projects through. •
