My interdisciplinary experience at Lafayette did not involve taking a course or doing research that combined two disciplines. The research that I conducted as part of my work toward one of my two degrees was interdisciplinary in itself.
Women’s and gender studies is an interdisciplinary field; there is no way to look at one issue without considering all sides of it. My research allowed me to develop an interdisciplinary perspective that I would have likely missed out on otherwise. Additionally, I would not have been able to pursue degrees in both fields at most institutions, however, Lafayette made that possible, largely due to the efforts of my adviser, Mary Armstrong.
My research involved masculinity, specifically, masculinity in terms of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” military policy, overturned in December 2010. Homosociality is a theoretical model for all-male spaces (or spaces where the vast majority are male). One important caveat is that a homosocial space can only function where there is no element of desire (i.e., no homosexuals). I used theory to argue that the typical characteristics of an all-male space were advantageous to the U.S. military, and presented my work at the 2011 National Conference for Undergraduate Research.
— Colin Rementer ’12, women’s and gender studies, chemical engineering; currently pursuing a Ph.D. in chemical engineering at UCLA