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Program Description
Faculty: Don Middendorf, Ph.D., Jean Cavendish, M.D., Sean Williams, Ph.D.
This three-quarter interdisciplinary program covered introductory music, psychology and philosophy of physics for first-year students. The goal was to familiarize students with college-level work in a challenging intellectual environment. Classes met for eight hours of lectures, two hours of workshops and four hours of seminar discussions of the texts each week. In fall quarter, three main topics were covered: from sound to meaning, the nature of physical reality, and psychology of perception. In winter quarter, the topics included music therapy across cultures, psychopathology, and the physics of music. At the end of each quarter, students gave individual and group presentations on topics related to our fields of study.
Students were encouraged to use active reading skills in their preparation for the lectures and the discussions, and to use active listening and note-taking skills during the lectures. The seminar discussions emphasized both active listening and speaking skills, and the short papers and assignments required prior to some of the seminars encouraged students to summarize and critically analyze the texts. Frequent essays, quizzes, and other assignments were used to assess the students’ understanding of the material, and to engage the students at a more experiential level. Students were taught how to use library resources for research and presentations.
The texts are listed below.
This is Your Brain on Music, by Daniel J. Levitin,
And There Was Light, by Jacques Lusseyran
Perfume: the Story of a Murderer, by Patrick Súskind
An Anthropologist on Mars: 7 Paradoxical Tales, by Oliver Sacks
The Writer’s Harbrace Handbook, by Horner, Webb, Miller
Quantum Questions, by Ken Wilbur
The Universe in a Single Atom, by H.H. Dalai Lama
Taking the Quantum Leap: The New Physics for Non-Scientists, by Fred Alan Wolf
SUGGESTED COURSE EQUIVALENCIES (in quarter hours) TOTAL: 16
4 – Systematic Musicology
4 – Psychology of Perception
4 – Philosophy of Modern Physics
2 – Expository Writing
2 – Research and Presentation
