sity of Toronto Scarborough

Intersections, Exchanges, Encounters in the Humanities (IEE)

WHAT IS IEE?

IEE is a selective major program – you will apply for entry. It is designed for students interested in a challenging and unique set of classes that grapple with the key ideas shared by scholars across the Humanities.

IEE is a companion major. You will complete the IEE major alongside another major. All IEE students must pursue a double major (or major and specialist). One of the most exciting discoveries that students make early into their university experience is that the texts that they are thinking about in one class cross over and inform their understanding of those that they are studying in another.

IEE provides students with methodologies that will enable them to explore their cross-disciplinary intuitions and insights. IEE is unique to UTSC! It is designed especially to match the interests and career goals of our students.

 

THE IEE CURRICULUM

Your IEE experience normally begins in your second year. (Although, this year, second year students will be allowed to apply for the program to enter in their third year.) Over your second and third years, you’ll complete our introductory courses where you will be exposed to some of the shared questions, texts, and methods that link the Humanities as a whole. Through a combination of intensive case study and exposure to and practice with key conceptual frameworks, students will be encouraged to identify connections across disciplines.

At the same time, you will begin to take more specialized courses at the C level. As IEE students advance into the C-level curriculum, they will delve more deeply into and gain practice with the conceptual and methodological tools that are shared across Humanities disciplines. For example, students majoring in French, English, History, or Visual and Performing Arts will learn why it is that their history courses attend so closely to language and why their literature courses attend so closely to cultural history, for instance. Along the way, you will be completing a language requirement – a crucial key to any future career you might choose.

At the D level, you will bring together your new skills in a capstone seminar. The paper you complete in this course can be a highlight of your academic experience at UTSC, a chance to draw on the ideas and methods of your years of coursework. You will also have a chance, at the D level, to apply your classroom learning in a real world situation. In an experiential learning course, students, in coordination with IEE faculty mentors and the course instructor, will design an individualized experiential learning program that reflects their own future intellectual and career goals. For example, you might work with a faculty member on research or volunteer at a local community organization. Some IEE students will be able to substitute a term-abroad as an alternative to the experiential learning course.

 

THE IEE EXPERIENCE

IEE provides personalized education and close community, with all the benefits of a major research university. You will work closely with IEE faculty and come to know your IEE cohort.

In IEE you will enroll in small classes, often taught in a seminar format. Readings will often be challenging and always engaging and surprising. You will have an individual faculty mentor with whom you will work throughout your time in the program. Your mentor will help guide you as you chose classes, grapple with new ideas, and think about your future goals; you may even have the chance to get involved in their own professional research!

IEE is built around the kinds of classes only offered here at UTSC. At the same time, it is designed to build community. You will often meet outside of classes with your IEE cohort for extra and co-curricular activities. And, at the conclusion of your IEE experience, you will help plan a year-end festival where you will have the chance to share your capstone work – whether an academic study or a piece of performance.

 

IEE AND YOUR FUTURE

IEE can be the ideal training for you – regardless of what you choose to do after graduation. You might enter teachers’ college, law school, or graduate school. You might enter the working world. Whatever your career goals, the skills you learn in IEE will be essential.
A degree in IEE combines the honour of graduating from a selective program, the personalized mentoring of IEE, the chance to perfect your writing skills, the opportunity to have applied your ideas in the real world, and the focused knowledge of the Humanities.

 

HOW DO I GET INTO IEE AND WHERE DO I GET MORE INFORMATION?

You may apply by APRIL 9, 2009. Please note that all applications must include a writing sample of 500 or more words along with the cover sheet. You may apply online now or download the cover sheet and submit it along with your writing sample by email or deliver them to the Department of Humanities Office. Once IEE faculty have reviewed your writing sample, we will have a short interview with eligible candidates.

For more information about IEE and our courses, please contact the program co-director, Prof. Daniel Bender or any of the IEE faculty. Please also see the FAQs below and our program description and course descriptions at the Department of Humanities website.
Courses for 2009-2010 include: “Time, Story, Perspective,” “Perspectives on Language and Culture I,” “Senses, Sensibility, Sensuality,” “Themes in Translation and Cultural Mediation I” and more!