Hyman to Head New Project

University officials announced the appointment of Associate Professor of Psychiatry Steven E. Hyman this week as the head of Mind, Brain and Behavior, one of the five interfaculty initiatives emphasized by President Neil L. Rudenstine.

The projects, which arose from a two-year University-wide academic planning process, are meant to encourage discussion between different schools of the Harvard teaching community.

Mind, Brain and Behavior is intended to serve as a base for mini think-tanks on issues of behavioral psychology, neurobiology and other related topics.

Hyman, who is also director of the division of addictions at Harvard Medical School, was nominated by other faculty members of the Medical School and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) to head the project, which Rudenstine originally proposed two years ago at a faculty conference.

Sarah Wald, assistant provost for policy and planning, said one goal of the initiative is "to make the University greater than the sum of its parts."

The other interfaculty programs are the Environment, Ethics and the Professions, Health Policy and Schooling and Children.

Although critics have called the interdisciplinary movements a bureaucratic attempt to centralize the Harvard teaching community, Hyman said the purpose is more intellectual.

He said that undergraduates should not expect to see a concentration in Mind, Brain and Behavior soon. The short-team goal is only to "work in stages," according to Hyman.

But Hyman said yesterday that he hopes to increase interaction between undergraduates and graduate school professors through joint research and the introduction of core classes featuring professors from graduate schools.

"Undergrads haven't had enough access to people outside FAS in the past," he said. "There is a remarkably amazing group of individuals the undergrads never see."