Integrated Studies Program to house freshman scholars

Freshmen in the Huntsman Program in International Studies and Business will no longer be the only ones with exclusive housing.

This fall, about 80 freshman Benjamin Franklin Scholars will live together in Riepe College House through the new Integrated Studies Program.

Those selected for the BFS program will enroll in a year-long, residential-based liberal arts curriculum designed to bridge the humanities, natural sciences and social sciences, Anthropology professor and ISP faculty Greg Urban said.

ISP students will meet four times a week to participate in three lectures and one discussion-based recitation, Urban said. These courses provide two course credits per semester and fulfill some college requirements.

The idea is to not only foster a stronger community among Benjamin Franklin Scholars through a common residence and set of classes, but also to create “dialogue across disciplinary boundaries” and encourage students to think broadly about universal issues, Urban said.

Each of the ISP lectures will be taught by a faculty member in the humanities, social sciences or natural sciences.

Courses this fall will center around “Identity, Inheritance and Change.” In the spring, freshmen will have the opportunity to take classes relating to “The Cosmos,” Political Science professor Rogers Smith said.

“The idea of the Integrated Studies Program is that it will enable students to take courses across the curriculum that are more closely linked thematically than they will be able to on their own,” said Smith, who will be teaching an ISP class on political science next spring.

“The hope is that it will provide for those who are interested, an opportunity to really think about central issues about the human experience from different standpoints,” Smith said.

BFS director Peter Struck has considered revamping the program since his appointment in 2009, said College and Wharton junior Charles Gray, who is a Benjamin Franklin Scholar.

Gray, former Student Committee on Undergraduate Education chairman and columnist at The Daily Pennsylvanian, worked with Struck to revamp the program after he found the program lacked a community aspect.

While the lack of community among BFS scholars can be attributed to the fact that students don’t live together, Gray said the admissions process plays a part as well.

“When the program was first implemented, it was a way for Penn to track top-level admits,” Gray said.

Selecting those students for the BFS program was done in hopes of giving them an incentive to enroll at Penn, but that “does not help the program,” he said.

Students who wish to enroll in the ISP must apply separately for the Integrated Studies academic program in the College and list the Integrated Studies residential program in Riepe as their first choice when applying for housing.

This ensures a self-selecting process so that those enrolled will not feel limited by the program curriculum, Urban said.

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