Editorial: Departmental certificates

Majority: Single departments should offer certificates

Most of Princeton’s departments offer only a concentration as a formal plan of study. This policy should be changed. While the University should be applauded for its commitment to interdisciplinary certificates, it should offer certificates in single departments as well.

Students are often interested in multiple departments: Chemistry majors may be interested in English, politics majors could be interested in physics. The University’s commitment to academic inquiry demands that students be empowered to pursue these secondary interests. Currently, however, students have no opportunity to pursue a formal plan of study apart from their major in almost any other department. They cannot benefit from a department’s resources, or in particular produce independent work, which provides a depth and comprehensiveness usually unavailable in coursework. Introducing certificates in departments would permit such students to more systematically and effectively pursue their interests.

Furthermore, there are many possibilities for interdisciplinary study not currently covered by a certificate — a philosophy major interested in the philosophy of physics or mathematics cannot pursue any certificate to complement his or her major, nor can a history major interested in political or economic history. Rather than creating a new certificate program to accommodate every conceivable interdepartmental connection, as the dissent seems to suggest, it would be far simpler to offer certificates in departments. Finally, it would simply be useful for students who have expended substantial academic effort in some department to have official acknowledgement of this fact.

The dissent seems to begin with the idea that certificate programs are narrower than departments. This premise is false. It is hard to see how one might compare the breadth of the study of gender and sexuality or of America to the study of chemical engineering or of German, and it seems implausible that the former are somehow narrower fields of knowledge. Even granting that claim, though, the objection falls flat. Certificates would provide a formal plan of study consisting of approximately six classes, in an appropriate distribution, and independent work. We agree that this track provides less understanding than a major. That is why we do not suggest it be called one. Students derive some value from taking eight classes and writing three pieces of independent work. (The dissent seems to consider eight and three to be magic numbers at which “mastery” appears; it is unclear why). Similarly, students will derive some value from taking six classes and writing one piece of independent work. The University should help them to do so.

Dissent: Certificates should be independent of departments

The majority advocates for the expansion of certificates into the major departments. This policy is logical given the majority’s conception of certificates as nothing more than an indication of formal study of a given discipline; however, the certificate program is not meant to indicate partial understanding or “some formal study” but, rather, a relative mastery of a narrower field — just as in their concentration.

In the same way that a concentration provides both a breadth and depth of understanding of the discipline, so too certificates are meant to provide a reasonable mastery of a neccessarily narrower field. Six classes in economics do not offer the same level of mastery as six classes in a narrower field such as finance. Admittedly, neither those that concentrate in history nor those that would pursue a certificate in Hellenic studies can claim absolute mastery of their discipline; however, there is a difference between understanding the limits of an undergraduate education and intentionally diluting the purpose and meaning of the entire certificate program.

The majority also argues that this new program would create better opportunities for interdisciplinary study and enable students to signal their strengths formally on applications. We are in no way opposed to creating more certificate programs to accommodate students’ interest in the intersections of various disciplines. Indeed, narrow certificates are uniquely suited to this purpose. In terms of signaling strengths, most resumes detail specific coursework or strengths, and particularly with an increase in certificate programs, specialties would be easy to signal. Ultimately, the University ought not obscure its mission to impart mastery, rather than familiarity, in its concentrations and certificates for the sake of resume clarity when these concerns can be addressed with more narrowly tailored certificates.

— Matthew Butler ’12, Shivani Radhakrishnan ’11, Will Pickering ’11, Daniel Cullen ’13, Ben Weisman ’11, Amanda Tuninetti ’11, Zayn Siddique ’11 and Justin Cahill ’11