Forty-two years ago, the faculty approved a radical shift in the curriculum that elevated the humanities into an integral part of a WPI education.
By Sharron Kahn Luttrell Illustrations by Alison Seiffer
T'S LATE AUGUST. A thousand WPI freshmen are twitching in their seats in Harrington Auditorium while Humanities and Arts (HUA) department chair Kristin Boudreau describes the humanities requirement.
She doesn't know for certain what's going through the students' minds, but she suspects it's not unbridled enthusiasm. After all, they didn't come to WPI to study poetry. But Boudreau is prepared. She has the info and she has the technology. Specifically, she has four professionally produced videos of WPI seniors describing how their humanities experiences broadened their minds and enhanced their technical prowess.
40 Spring 2012
an artful