Professor of Emeritus Jim McIlwain: Neuroscience

How did you get involved in this department/concentration?

Well, I got a job there! I studied the neural system and was interested in doing research in the Department of Neuroscience, only, there wasn’t one when I got here. We had what was called a section of Neuroscience, not a department. Then, it eventually evolved into a department which is what it now. I had always wanted to study the brain so when the time came for me to get a job, well first I was drafted in the army for three years and then I came back. I retired 13 years ago but I still teach. When I first came to Brown, I don’t even know if there were any Neuroscience concentrations in the country. At Brown, it was an IC before becoming a department. I remember we had students come here to do reading and courses. It started off as an IC with one or two professors. So, what happened was there were enough students who wanted to do that and people thought, “Well, we should do that!” The interested departments were Psychology and Biomed. There was also the Center for Neuroscience run by Leon Cooper and the Physics Department, they ran this center. I’m a little fuzzy still on the evolution there but I know for a long time it was kind of not right that an IC that was run by two departments. Interdisciplinary, if you will. We had a two-semester course NEURO 91 and 92 or PSYCH 92. The 92 that cross-listed was an introduction predecessor of the Neuro 1 course. At some point in there, I was the chair of Neuroscience at Brown up until 1980. It got taken over by this super interdepartmental group called Center for Neuroscience. They had some faculty and they wanted to teach the courses. There was a back and forth about who should be in charge of the academic side and research side. Eventually, it came into the department of Neuroscience. And there’s cognitive science and CLPS in there. But the concentration’s pretty big. It’s really a standard pre-med concentration.

Neuroscience is an Sc.B so that means they have more required than A.B. Still, not a lot for required courses. Probably only half are required. The thing we always have trouble with when we advise students is to not double concentrate because it wipes out all your electives. Well, Neuroscience is now a formal concentration so it doesn’t really have much engineering, it’s just there. There’s a lot of opportunity for students to work independently and do research. Doing an IC is a very hard process because they think it’s gonna be easy. Some have unrealistic ideas, they come in far too focused, they want to spend all their time proving something they already know is true. Having them step back and say “I wanna study this,” whatever it is. They have to think what are the basic background courses, then specialized courses, then senior thesis. That’s what faculty does when they start off a concentration. I think the ICs are great to have available. Some people, it suits them. Some people like standards.

What advice would you give to students interested in concentrating in Neuroscience?

I’d have to say, I like to ask what courses they’ve had. If they said they haven’t had Neuroscience, well, tell them they’ve got to think about that some more. The other thing has to do with double concentrations; I ask are you interested in Neuroscience because you want to go to medical school or are you interested in this because you really like it. In the Critical Review, students sometimes say “don’t take this course unless you’re interested in the subject.” Why wouldn’t anyone take that advice! Like I said, Neuroscience is science. It’s narrow, I think, and this speaks to my own experience. The best background for Neuroscience is to have philosophy. I’m big into students having lots of humanities while they’re in college. As a neuroscience concentrator, you can be a lab rat and if you like that that’s fine, that’s the beauty of the Open Curriculum. But then senior year it’s like “Gee, look at all these courses I wish I’d taken at Brown.

You mentioned that you worked with getting the Medieval Studies concentration started, can you tell me about that?

Well, it’s a great escape from Neuroscience! And it started off as an IC. It became a formal concentration sometime probably around 1980, then it divided into two sub concentrations: late antiquity and now they’re talking about merging it with renaissance again. It’s a funny little concentration. We have about 4 or 5 concentrators and some years we don’t have any. Most times they double, it’s a very eclectic group of people. The big block for lots of students is you have to learn a foreign language. But it’s very closely monitored by the faculty who are in charge of sponsoring the students. You get a mix of people lots of people who are doing pre-med, they wanna do something different, people who do languages, people who do computer science do it, people who do Dungeons and Dragons like that are interested in it, so that happens. It’s evolved. I don’t know what the future is because Brown doesn’t really support the teaching of old languages like old high german, old Norse, they’re gone. It used to be a powerhouse but now things have changed, so the climate has changed, but it was one of these things where it started off with a bunch of faculty who would meet and talk about a paper something like that. Then they formed a committee on medieval studies and give a course on medieval perspectives. At one point the committee became a program and the concentration was passed for credit. So it evolved. It was one of these typical areas that was out there on the change. And we have a DUG and students are out there interested in it. It’s a great experience to be associated with it.

I think the Open Curriculum is one of the best things to ever happen to Brown, it happened to ‘68 it was going strong. It’s still rough around the edges. The great thing about it is that any other college in the US has a core curriculum. Departments are always going to want their course in the core curriculum because that’s where they get resources, so they’re always fighting each other. But at Brown that doesn’t happen. It’s a benefit that that doesn’t happen. There’s no infighting so that’s one of the beauties of the new curriculum in campus politics. It’s a relief to not have this battle.