The proposed creation of new joint History Triposes, with Politics and Modern Languages respectively, was discussed in the Senate House last week.

The new Triposes, which are intended to increase student numbers and ensure that Cambridge can compete with similar courses at other universities, are expected to welcome their first intake of students in October 2017, alongside a new Archaeology Tripos.

Presided over by Pro-Vice Chancellor Lynn Gladden, Cambridge’s Shell Professor of Chemical Engineering, the debate included contributions from academics from the Department for Politics and International Studies (POLIS), the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages (MML), and the History Faculty.

Professor Chris Young, a specialist in Dutch and German at Pembroke, said that the new Triposes marked a “decisive step forward in undergraduate education in the Humanities at Cambridge”.

He claimed that they would “enable [the university] to continue to attract the very best students … [and] also play their part in broadening collaboration between disciplines that is vital for the university’s future success”.

Young also emphasised the added value that the new Triposes would provide, stating that joint Triposes have “long been a deeply desired desideratum for colleagues in the Humanities”.

Political economist Helen Thompson, Deputy Head of the School of the Humanities and Social Sciences, highlighted the rigour that the new programmes would provide.

She stated that they would “recruit new, strong applicants” and “drive up recruitment for our existing programmes and thus contribute to a stronger, more vibrant undergraduate environment”.

Politics Department head David Runciman added that the joint Politics Tripos “draws on the combined strengths of History and POLIS and reflects the overlapping interests between them across a wide field of study”.

Against comparable courses at other universities, Runciman stated that the joint Tripos would “include specially designed new papers that enable students to understand the relationship between the two subjects and the links between them”.

Magnus Ryan, the History Faculty’s Academic Secretary, called the academic and pedagogic case for the joint Triposes “impregnable”. 

In particular, he said that the joint History and MML Tripos would “afford undergraduates an opportunity of enhancing their specialised by applying it in ways either not permitted or not encourages by the current arrangements”.

Ryan also claimed that the History and Politics Tripos would “introduce [students] to a variety of analytical perspectives and thus encourage critical reflection of a kind not currently possible”.