History of IGE

Every community is shaped by its history. The story of the Interdisciplinary General Education (IGE) Program began in the late 1970s, when a group of Cal Poly Pomona faculty dreamed of a new way to approach general education – an integrated pathway that would create a learning community, reveal vital connections across time and space, and empower students to apply the knowledge and methods from across the humanities and social sciences to big questions impacting their lives and the world today.

What should such a bold curriculum look like? For three years, faculty from more than a dozen disciplines gathered in classrooms, living rooms, and campus forums, debating models and sharing ideas. Colleagues from departments as diverse as Engineering and Environmental Design weighed in on the unique needs of polytechnic students. With support from Executive Order 338 and an Academic Program Improvement Grant from the CSU Chancellor’s Office, their vision became reality. The Academic Senate approved the new Interdisciplinary General Education Program in 1983.

That fall, IGE opened its program with eight faculty and 150 students. The program featured a two-year sequence—freshman courses rooted in the humanities and sophomore courses in the social sciences. By 1985, IGE had evolved into an innovative, team-taught curriculum of eight four-unit classes, weaving together humanities and social sciences in a way that emphasized both intellectual rigor and personal growth. Classes combined large-group meetings with intimate seminar discussions, creating a learning community that quickly became the program’s hallmark.

Over the decades, IGE has continued to evolve through retreats, faculty collaboration, and assessment. Today, it offers thirteen thematic courses that emphasize discussion, community, and sustained intellectual engagement. Students and faculty alike forge close connections as they grow personally and professionally and explore ideas that cross disciplinary boundaries.

The program has also built a dedicated faculty community. In 1998, Dr. Nancy Ware became the first tenure-track hire, joined by Dr. Kenneth Stahl as a full-time lecturer. Subsequent years brought new voices: Dr. Hend Gilli-Elewy and Dr. Dennis Quinn (2005), Dr. Hilary Haakenson (2015), and Dr. Hyeryung Hwang (2020). IGE’s accomplished lecturers—including Dr. Peg Lamphier, Dr. Andy Davis, Mr. Howard Jian, Mr. Stephen Rudicel, Dr. Brian Foster, Dr. James Rietveld, and Dr. Patrick Polk—add further depth and diversity. Today, over 1,000 students and a dozen faculty members participate in IGE each year.

IGE’s impact has been widely recognized. In 1987, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) awarded IGE its prestigious Mitau Award, naming it one of the nation’s top ten interdisciplinary programs. In 1993, IGE hosted the national meeting of the Association for Integrative Studies. Its integrated approach earned high praise in the 1995 WASC accreditation report and has served as a model for general education reform both at Cal Poly Pomona and beyond. Dr. Mary Allen’s Assessing General Education Programs (2006) cites IGE as a benchmark for best practices in assessment.

In Fall 2023, IGE celebrated its 40th anniversary—making it one of the CSU system’s longest-standing interdisciplinary innovations. Today, it continues to serve as a national model for learning communities, integrative pedagogy, and general education, proving that the dreams of those faculty in the late 1970s grew into something lasting, vibrant, and vital.