Additional certificate options expand areas of academic study

“I was a physics major as an undergraduate, right over in Jadwin,” Burrows said. “But I didn’t really decide on astrophysics or astronomy until I went to graduate school.”

After weaving his way through several layers of University bureaucracy, Burrows has become the founding chairman of the newly established Certificate Program in Planets and Life.

Planets and life is one of three new certificates established this year, along with one in values and public life and one in jazz studies. Nassau Hall has overseen a dramatic increase in its certificate offerings over the last five years, introducing 11 of its current 45 programs during this period.

The planets and life certificate was created largely as a response to demand from the astrobiology club, Burrows explained. “This is an interesting subject that many people had been pursuing separately, and [creating the certificate] was an opportunity to integrate these disparate approaches for the benefit of the undergraduates.”

Once a faculty member conceives of an idea for a certificate, he or she must seek approval from three groups. The process can take anywhere from a few months to several years of planning.

First, the faculty member writes a proposal to the Academic Planning Group, which must confirm that the new program can be supported by existing resources and fits within the academic mission of the University.

Next, the proposal is forwarded to the Committee on the Course of Study, chaired by Dean of the College Nancy Malkiel. In the committee, the curricular offerings and structure of the proposal are scrutinized in detail.

The Faculty Advisory Committee on Policy conducts the final review before the proposal is voted on by the full faculty. At any point in the process, these committees may ask the certificate program’s supporters to supply more information about or make revisions to the proposal.

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One factor that can complicate the process is the need to devise more courses before a certificate can be launched. This was the case with the information technology and society certificate.

“The overall process took over a couple of years, in large part because we had to develop a new introductory course (Technology and Society) for the program,” electrical engineering professor Sharad Malik, who is on the program’s executive committee, explained in an e-mail.

The process may be arduous, but undergraduates said they valued the result.

“I’m planning to do finance,” said Nick Ligthart ’14, a prospective physics major. “I like the certificates because they give you an opportunity to explore other subjects, and it’s nice to have down on my transcript. I think it will help me get more career opportunities.”

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Another prospective physics major has different plans for his non-major studies. “I could definitely see myself doing one of the certificates in history or social studies,” Dan Davies ’14 explained. “Maybe European politics, maybe South Asian studies, maybe women and gender.”

Indeed, professors voiced similar opinions about the value of pursuing multiple academic interests in depth.

“The universe provides many contexts where you have to know a little bit about this, a little bit about that, and it’s all combined together because nature does what it’ll do,” Burrows said. “Many things come together. What we’re trying to foster in students is the awareness that one needs to have a knowledge of many different disciplines to address the more complex issues.”