New TAU Program Incorporates Humanities courses into STEM Curriculum
While Tel Aviv University is justly noted for its achievements in science and technology, it is now attempting to inculcate a greater appreciation of the humanities among its students in the sciences to develop well-rounded students in all disciplines of knowledge.
Starting next academic year, the university’s Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for STEM and the Humanities will enable all incoming STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) students to take three humanities courses as part of their regular degree requirements, thereby incorporating liberal arts into their science and technology curricula. Courses focus on introductory and survey courses that instill essential skills of humanistic thought such as critical thinking, debating, writing, ethical analysis and more. The courses offered through the Mandel Center cover philosophy, rhetoric, cultural studies, literature and history.
Enrollment in the humanities has fallen at universities worldwide over the last two decades while that of STEM has increased. At Tel Aviv University, for example, the number of undergraduates at the Entin Faculty of Humanities dropped from 2,600 in 2003 to 1,600 in 2018, a reduction of 38% over 15 years.
In response, the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation, under the leadership of the late Morton L. Mandel, pioneered the Program for Humanities in Engineering at TAU in 2016. In 2019 the program was expanded to students in the Exact and Life Sciences. The latest iteration of the program extends to all incoming STEM students and will take the form of frontal courses, online courses and hybrid live-digital learning.
“The courses that we are offering STEM students are core courses in the humanities,” says Professor Ariel Porat, TAU President. “Our goal is that all students of the sciences should be exposed to the ways of thinking of the humanities.
“The mission statement of the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation states in unambiguous terms that the humanities are the foundation of human aspiration and experience,” says Prof. Jehuda Reinharz, President and CEO of the Mandel Foundation and a 2022 TAU Honorary Doctor. “Given the continuous decline of study and research in the field we set as one of our major goals to promote and expand its impact. We are delighted to support the ever-expanding interest of Tel Aviv University in integrating the study of the humanities with the natural sciences and engineering, as well as continuing to explore new opportunities for those who are specializing in the research and promotion of this critical field.”
Students enrolled in Mandel-sponsored humanities courses say that they provide them with a different way of thinking. “In the sciences, we fear questions that don’t ultimately have definitive answers,” says Michal Levin, a fourth-year engineering student. “In the humanities, we are taught to embrace those types of questions.”
Ido Mellul, a first-year biology student, adds: “The program has helped me better formulate philosophical questions in a scientific context. For example, I questioned my lecturers regarding applied ethics in the case of gene-editing technology,” he says. “This was something I didn’t think I could do before.”
“The new Mandel Humanities Core Program reinforces the humanities’ relevance to all professions, to universal scientific challenges and to the burning issues of society,” says Prof. Rachel Gali Cinamon, TAU Dean of Humanities. “Students will bring their newly acquired humanistic perspectives into their science studies and later their careers.”
“The Mandel Foundation’s generosity,” says TAU President Porat, “has allowed TAU to rejuvenate the humanities, ensuring that TAU students benefit from this crucial school of thought, which in turn benefits Israeli society as a whole.”