Point - Counterpoint

By Barbara D. Kiernan, M.A. '90

"Argument is an art," says Dr. Edward Dew, professor of politics in the College of Arts & Sciences (CAS). And you'll get no argument there from Dr. Jay Buss, the Roger M. Lynch Professor of Economics (CAS). You see, for the last decade, Drs. Dew and Buss have worked to perfect the art. Their canvas? The classroom.

For the valiant who sign on for Dr. Dew's 8 a.m. "Introduction to Comparative Politics," followed at 9:30 by Dr. Jay Buss' "Introduction to Macroeconomics," a fascinating experience is about to begin. It's called a cluster course (or a course cluster, depending on your grammatical bent), in which two separate courses cover the same issues from the perspective of different academic disciplines.

Clearly, Drs. Dew and Buss enjoy the collegial collaboration that such an approach to teaching requires. It can be tricky, as Dr. Dew covers the history, geography, and culture of eight countries, one at a time. Dr. Buss teaches the economic theories that equip his students to apply them to the nations being studied in Dr. Dew's course, among them France, Iran, Japan, and Brazil. "Economic principles like inflation, income distribution, and monetary policy look very different in each of those places, because of their history, geography, and culture," says Dr. Buss.

Every two weeks, the professors join forces for an extended classroom debate on a topic their students have studied, such as health care, human rights, or the role of government in a citizen's life. "Watching them is like watching a tennis match, back-and-forth, back-and-forth," says Nadine Hovnanian '09. "Dr. Buss is vibrant, passionate; Dr. Dew is unflappable."

Few college freshmen get to witness an intellectual exercise of this nature, much less be part of one in the core curriculum. "Because they're all taking the same two courses together, the students get to know each other more quickly and bond at a higher intellectual level," says Dr. Dew. "By the second week, when I walk into class I'm interrupting a conversation - and that's at 8 a.m.!"

At first, Jeffrey Billingham '09 found the very idea of registering for a cluster intimidating. "I wondered if the professors would expect more of us." As it turns out, they did. For Billingham, the international focus of the cluster made for an assumption-rattling first semester. "I realized that the things we consider the norm in the United States are not so in other places," he says, noting that income distribution in Brazil and Russia precludes having a middle class, and that in Japan, the goal of work has been to do so cohesively, not competitively. "The cluster put a cultural spin on the numbers and a real-world focus on the politics."

Hovnanian, the daughter of Armenian parents born in Romania (she speaks both languages fluently), reveled in the global perspective offered by the cluster. In fact, she and her parents ran into Dr. Dew at JFK International Airport last summer. "There we were, me less than five feet tall and he around six-foot-four, both on our way to Madrid," she laughs. Ten days later, they ran into him again in Gibraltar. "Dr. Dew is very hands-on," says Hovnanian, noting that his teaching includes showing films that document the country being discussed (some of which he has made while traveling). "He's an intellectual man with a peaceful aura who enjoys what he is doing."

What he and his colleague are doing in the cluster, Dr. Dew says, "is equipping kids with a recognizable problem, giving them something they can sink their teeth into." He and Dr. Buss then model how an argument goes so the students can recognize where the problems and differences lie. "By listening to conflicting views and contrasting positions, you can trace them back to their roots - in different bodies of information," says Dr. Dew.

Dr. Buss is a wellspring of ideas for debate: corruption in Russia, oil-rich countries, development in poor countries, the aging work population, immigration problems, and more. "On our own, Ed and I might not address these topics as interlocked problems," says Dr. Buss. "But by each advocating from a different perspective, we really do challenge the students - and each other - to think."

Both Billingham and Hovnanian agree. So pleased were they by the challenge and so taken by the interdisciplinary approach to learning that they each applied to and were accepted as sophomores into the Honors Program, which extends the method across all four years.

This development is a source of pride for both professors - no argument about it.