Introduction: The program major in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics (also known as Philosophy, Politics, and Economics) was started in 1985 after several years of discussion between the founding faculty members - Gordon Bjork, John Roth, and Ward Elliott - about ways to meet college objectives of increasing the analytic and communication skills of students.

The program is modeled loosely on the Oxford University program major with the same components, with several adaptations to meet American and CMC requirements. Unlike Oxford, we ask only half of the students’ time for two years, rather than all of the students' time for three years. We make more use of end-of-term evaluation than Oxford does, and less of end-of-program evaluation. And we strongly encourage (but do not require) students to study or intern outside of Claremont in the fall semester of their junior year.

The program core is highly structured, unlike Pomona’s PPE program, where there is no limit on number of majors, students choose from a wide menu of courses, and until recently there was no tutorial and very little shared learning experience or group interaction (Pomona PPE now has senior seminars for majors). It also differs from Harvard and Williams departmental tutorials, which emphasize individual directed reading and writing but not group interaction. We limit admission to the program to 10-12 students per class, require what amounts to the same six core classes for everyone in the same class, and lay heavy stress on group interaction. With such a small group, we can ask more than the normal output of reading, writing, discussion, analysis, and debate; we can arrange many joint activities outside of class; and we can give them a larger share of attention, intensity, and attachment than would otherwise be possible.

Over its 15-year history, this high intensity has had uncommonly high payoffs. PPE has contributed more than its share of CMC’s Truman Scholars (3 of our last 5), Watson Fellows, Rotary Scholars, and Rhodes state finalists (several in recent years), J.P. Morgan interns (3 of the 50 they took in 1996 were from CMC, all PPE), and Harvard and Yale Law School and Harvard Business School acceptances (several in recent years). 5% of the women in the Yale Law School Class of ’01 are CMC PPE graduates. Several more have gone to Harvard’s Kennedy School, its school of Arts and Sciences, and its Architecture School. Many are successful lawyers and businessmen. At least five are CEO’s. Two or three are already college professors, one at Cornell. Others are on the way. One has written, produced, and acted in several plays here and abroad. One was televised last spring to ten million Japanese viewers, playing the part of Lady Macbeth. One has cut a CD of her own songs. One has been an underground investigative reporter, covering EST and race tensions at Glendale High School. One has written a book for the Hudson Institute on the impact of privately-funded charities. One set up the private-sector consortium to put every school in California on the net. One drew up the U.S. Department of Education’s master plan for the mid-1990’s. One is now an Arizona state representative. One is currently running for attorney-general of Montana.

This seems to me a remarkable record of achievement for only 140 of CMC’s 3,000 or so graduates of the last 13 years, but achievement is only half the story. They also have uncommonly strong attachments to each other and to CMC. I get more letters, calls, e-mail, and visits from PPE alums than from all others combined. A third of our PPE graduates returned to CMC in 1996 to celebrate the program’s tenth anniversary. See attached reunion scrapbook [not included on web]. We think there is a lesson here: if you give students more attention, you get more attention back, and more achievement, too.

Program requirements have evolved over the years. Initially, the program started abroad in the fall of junior year, with all students expected to take the same specially designed program, first at the University of Buckingham, later at the University of Nottingham. When the director of the Nottingham program was promoted to Provost of the University, and students asked to study at alternative locations, the common study-abroad program was abandoned. Since then, students have been encouraged to study anywhere off-campus in the fall of their junior year. Now they travel all over the world -- to South Africa, Nigeria, South America, and South Vietnam, as well as to more northerly places. The CMC core segments, which originally began in the spring of the junior year, have been pushed back one semester and now start in the spring of the sophomore year with the philosophy segment, under Roth. The fall of the junior year, as before, is study off-campus, to encourage breadth of understanding of alternative views. The spring of the junior year, under the new arrangement, is for the politics segment, under Elliott, and the fall of the senior year for the economic segment, under Bjork. The change is intended to avoid the jobseeking distractions of the spring semester of senior year.

The PPE major originally required 17 courses, including 3 prerequisites, 6 core PPE course-equivalents, and eight elective courses, three of them preferably off-campus. The electives have since been reduced to three, covering at least two of the constituent disciplines, and preferably off-campus. PPE majors are encouraged, but not required, to complete the equivalent of the requirements of one of the constituent majors. The PPE core courses typically involve weekly seminars and weekly tutorials, with weekly papers and oral reports on assigned questions.

For all but one of its 15-year history, the program has been staffed by the same three faculty members. They were recruited by Bjork for their PPE “fit” -- rapport with students, complementarity of interests and teaching methods, and openness to diverse student perspectives -- as well as for their teaching and research abilities. They have been willing to schedule their professional commitments around their one semester per year commitment to the program and plan to do so for the immediate future. Over the years, surveys of teaching effectiveness in the program have indicated a high degree of student satisfaction. This is reinforced by student comments after graduation, when they compare their experience with peers in graduate school or employment. Two faculty members in the program have achieved national recognition from outside organizations for excellence in teaching.

Admission to the program is by application during the fall semester of the sophomore year. Each PPE cohort amounts to about 5% of the entire (expanded) class, not the 10-20% or so of each class which, as freshmen, express an interest in PPE. Fortunately, so far, most, but not all, of this difference has come not from our insistence on keeping the program small and intense, but from the students’ own migration to other majors. After a year at CMC, they say, they become aware of other majors’ attractions, and of the heavy demands that PPE makes on their time. Despite the program’s strong attraction for freshmen, actual sophomore applications have seldom been much more numerous than the number of spaces available. We have never had to turn down more than a half-dozen PPE applicants in any given year. But even a half-dozen is a problem, and the potential of a larger, more embarrassing demand overhang has always been there. It has always been a source of concern for us and for the college; and it could be increasing as our incoming freshman classes get larger and more qualified.

In its 15 years of existence the program has been not only an educational success, but also a recruitment and development success, and it has been run with a minimal budget and no released time or compensation for the faculty co-ordinator. It attracts as many CMC applicants as much larger programs. This year it is the preferred major of 14 entering freshmen. That makes it their fifth most popular intended major after Econ (34), IR (33), Government (26), and Biology (17). It has also attracted at least one major donation, a 1995 gift of $2.2 million in stock and cash from Mrs. Aletha C. Sexton to fund the PPE program and honor her husband, Edward J. Sexton. Participants in the program are identified as “Edward J. Sexton Fellows in PPE,” and the grant funds a small, discretionary budget of $5,000 a year for expenses benefiting PPE students. The Sexton grant principal has since grown to a market value of $3.7 million and now produces over $150,000 in annual income. We would be surprised if this were the last such grant to CMC, and we look forward to the day when the program is fully endowed, with funds for visiting lecturers, faculty research, and research and travelling fellowships for students.