What is CHID?
CHID is a one-of-a-kind department where students enjoy the freedom of an interdisciplinary liberal arts degree within the context of a renowned research university. Our award-winning faculty and staff help students explore their passions and deepen their understanding of the world.
Department Philosophy
By introducing students to the interrelation of ideas and society, Comparative History of Ideas demonstrates the need to consider intellectual problems from many perspectives. The goal of the department is to develop the tools of critical thinking in each student. We hope to engender an attitude of personal engagement and creativity within students. We encourage them to think for themselves, and to think critically about the world and the categories we use to understand it. In addition, the department seeks to inculcate a sense of the importance of a disciplined and interdisciplinary methodology as a means to investigate intellectual problems, while at the same time revealing the inherent weaknesses and limitations of any system.
Statement of Principles
The participating members (students, staff and faculty) of the Department of Comparative History of Ideas are engaged in a collective endeavor to construct a dynamic, creative learning community that will mobilize our collective and individual passions. We encourage our members to pursue the ideal of self-knowledge collaboratively through informed and self-conscious participation in the changing world in which their selves are shaped and which they will shape for their own and future generations.
CHID is widely recognized across campus for a number of contributions. We have created an exemplary curriculum for a problem-oriented interdisciplinary program, and nurtured a unique undergraduate culture. CHID has produced students recognized across the university for their inquiring, experimental, totally engaged participation in the life of the mind, their outstanding intellectual achievements, and their passionate commitment to asserting ownership of both the content and the process of their education. Additionally, CHID is noted for creating a laboratory for curricular innovation, for the "internationalization" of undergraduate education, for pedagogical creativity in learner-based methods of teaching and research, for extensive cross-unit collaborations, and for its focus on engaged community learning and public service.
As CHID has developed and grown, we have been guided by a number of general principles:
- The questions are the content.
- Students center our learning community.
- We share many forms of knowledge and welcome many ways of thinking.
- Interdisciplinary teaching and learning require critique, creativity, and connection.
- Together we see and build the university otherwise, an approach to knowledge that is non-hierarchical, unorthodox, relational, and generous.
From these principles have emerged the educational practices, the institutional innovations, and above all, that reflective, questioning, engaged "CHID student." We believe these qualities have immensely enriched the undergraduate life of this university. Many people think that this kind of intense, engaged community of learning is not possible within the context of a large, urban, commuter-oriented research university. For CHID, the large university is an opportunity for collaboration and exploration: an enabling condition for, rather than a hindrance to, passion, perspective and community in undergraduate education.
More about our rhizomatic community
Brochure
Below you can download a PDF file of CHID's current brochure. Just click the link and your browser will view it online. If you want to download a copy, right-click the link and choose "Save As," then indicate where you wish to save it on your computer.