As told by Dr. Barbara Mossberg
I was driving down Highway One and noticed a hill covered with purple flowers—irises, perhaps. They were so beautiful in the morning light. At the base of the hill, there was a bulldozer. This worried me suddenly. What was the connection between that bulldozer and that hill of purple flowers? Was there a way that I could somehow stop this bulldozer from razing that hill? Was there a way to save purple flowers?
The information on this page is designed to provide an overall understanding of the ISSM degree, and is subject to update and change. Students should check with the ISSM professors, director, and advisor for up-to-date information.
I was driving down Highway One and noticed a hill covered with purple flowers—irises, perhaps. They were so beautiful in the morning light. At the base of the hill, there was a bulldozer. This worried me suddenly. What was the connection between that bulldozer and that hill of purple flowers? Was there a way that I could somehow stop this bulldozer from razing that hill? Was there a way to save purple flowers?
If we were going to make a case for saving the flowers, it would have to be about saving the color purple, so beautiful in the morning light, so improbable coming from brown ground. What makes purple?
I imagined our university curriculum as a way that we organize knowledge. What if we wanted to learn and express the color Purple, and we have a Department of Red, and a Department of Blue, but no Department of Purple? Would we have to choose between them and approximate the color purple, learn a fraction of its gist?
Well, at CSUMB, we are ingenious thinkers! We can simply add up the Departments of Red and Departments of Blue, and make up our own Department of Purple!
That is how I see our ISSM program. Our students have a vision of what you need to learn , and from the canvas of the CSUMB curriculum, you “draw” from them to make your own composite department, expressing “purple” knowledge.
ISSM students “wear the purple,” by which we mean, we each take “red” and “blue” kinds of disciplinary knowledge from the majors at CSUMB. For one person, this means fusing music and business, for another, it means combining environmental science, film, and education, and the final result, in each case, is “purple”—that wondrous, miraculous, beautiful color, so possible to make, after all.
And if we acquire the purple learning we need, perhaps we are equipped to fight on its behalf, to keep the world safe for purple, to keep purple flourishing—whatever good and essential aspects there are to life for which our students’ learning will save the day.
© Dr. Barbara Mossberg
The information on this page is designed to provide an overall understanding of the ISSM degree, and is subject to update and change. Students should check with the ISSM professors, director, and advisor for up-to-date information.
100 Campus Center
