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CUE 2004

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Herbst Humanities Program: Herbst Engages Engineering Community in Poetry, Opera

A scene from Donizetti's The Elixer of Love, performed by the CU Opera.

Whether by scribing an "Ode to Concrete" or attending a "Night at the Opera," the entire engineering community was challenged by Herbst Humanities to embrace the humanities this spring.

Herbst sponsored a visit to Donizetti's The Elixir of Love on March 12, and a group of 160 engineering students, faculty, alumni, and staff took advantage of the first in a series of Herbst-sponsored musical events. On the literary front, over 150 poems—some displaying insight, others with an eye for beauty, and many offering a witty comment on one human foible or another—were submitted in the first annual Herbst Poetry Contest. Prizes were awarded during the Engineering Days festivities in April.

Freshmen also found new opportunities, as Herbst extended its course offerings into the freshman year. Recognizing that first-year engineers often cannot find places in the Humanities and Social Science electives they desire, the College of Engineering and Applied Science has turned to Herbst to offer multiple sections of a freshman-level "Introduction to the Humanities."

One goal of the course is to teach important skills, such as careful reading, forceful writing, and clear speaking; and the restricted size of the seminars is a huge help in making this possible. A second goal is to introduce students to the broad range of the humanities, so they have a better basis from which to select their H&SS courses in the future, while also being more able to view the principal ideas and values of contemporary American culture in a broader perspective.

Having gone to the opera, Herbst will next head for Rome. Starting in May 2005, Herbst will offer a 3000-level course in the Eternal City. Its principal goal will be to show the clashes within Western civilization, for they are unmistakable there, in a city that has been the capital of both a pagan, imperial, aristocracy, and a Christian monarchy, and is now the capital of a modern, secular democracy.

www.colorado.edu/engineering/herbst/