By Julie FrenchThe Daily Northwestern

A new program at Northwestern’s Graduate School will make it easier for students to take classes outside their concentrations starting in the fall.

As part of the Interdisciplinary Cluster Initiative, graduate students will be able to take a “cluster” of about three classes from fields such as Asian studies and gender studies in addition to their work in their own departments.

Administrators said offering this option will promote collaboration between students and faculty from different disciplines.

“The university has been trying to brand itself as a place of interdisciplinary research,” said Graduate School Dean Andrew Wachtel. “There’s been a huge amount of effort to make Northwestern stand for something positive rather than being almost as good as Harvard, Yale and Princeton.”

Graduate students at NU apply to a specific program and take classes mostly in that department.

The new program offers students a choice among nine clusters starting in the fall, with more clusters being added as faculty members develop new ideas. NU will become one of several universities nationally to offer interdisciplinary cluster programs.

Some clusters, such as comparative literature and African-American studies, already exist as doctoral programs, but now students from other departments will have more access to those classes.

When the idea for clusters was first discussed in 2005, some faculty members and students expressed their concern that larger departments already offer interdisciplinary opportunities.

Second-year history graduate student Meghan Cunningham said she expects most of her classes to come from the history department anyway.

“Our classes tend to be interdisciplinary already because there are students from other disciplines in most of our classes,” Cunningham said.

Stefanie Bator, another second-year history graduate student, set up an interdisciplinary connection with the English department on her own before the initiative was created.

“I feel that interdisciplinary work is important in the current academic environment,” said Bator, who also is pursuing a certificate in gender studies. “(But) unfortunately, the American university system is still set up on the department system.”

Wachtel said the cluster system will standardize ways for students to work across disciplines.

Professors from different departments have worked together in the past, and the cluster system will help extend that collaboration to students, he said.

“It’s kind of trickled down in an accidental way up until now,” Wachtel said.

Art history Prof. Sarah Fraser, the director of the Asian studies cluster, said the cluster initiative will allow smaller departments to gain recognition, students and possibly resources for their programs.

“Right now there’s not a lot of exchange between the departments,” she said. “(The cluster initiative) will force people to start sharing.”

Many graduate students aim to be university professors after earning their degrees, and their potential employers will expect them to have a solid foundation in their primary discipline, Wachtel said, so he expects students to choose clusters that complement their main areas of study.

“There’s no question that you need to have a discipline,” he said. “You can’t be a dilettante grad student.”

Wachtel said the goal of the clusters is to train students “to be responsible professors, and yet make sure that their intellectual interests are met.”

English department Chairwoman Wendy Wall said universities looking for new professors are interested in students who are trained in multiple fields.

Many English graduate students have been hired for tenure-track jobs involving interdisciplinary work, Wall wrote in an e-mail to The Daily.

Wachtel said he expects the clusters will face less resistance than they did before, once faculty and students begin to see the benefits.

Fraser, the art history professor, said she sees the potential advantages.

“It enables the university to be deeper and more rich using the resources it already has,” she said. “It’s something that will enhance the university, so we’re willing to try it. I think most departments have come around to the idea of trying (the cluster initiative) on a pilot basis.”

Reach Julie French at [email protected].