Robert K. Johnson
Integrated Studies Program
The Robert K. Johnson Integrated Studies Program is the first-year curriculum for Benjamin Franklin Scholars pursuing degrees in the College of Arts and Sciences.
Deeply rooted in the liberal arts tradition of acquiring and applying expansive knowledge, this residential academic program invites highly motivated students to examine complex themes through the integration of multiple academic disciplines and methodologies.
The Robert K. Johnson Integrated Studies Experience
Robert K. Johnson Integrated Studies students are taught by Penn’s leading faculty and live together in Hill College House. Students pursue a challenging curriculum molded by theoretical and methodological approaches that encourage the crossing of intellectual boundaries and the integration of diverse ways of knowing. Students are also bolstered by the camaraderie of their fellow RKJ Integrated Studies students, as they work their way through Penn and beyond.
RKJ Integrated Studies classes include two course units in the fall and two in the spring. Since these courses fulfill three of the College’s seven general education requirements, RKJ Integrated Studies students are well positioned to launch into any course of study by their sophomore year.
Course Themes,
2025–26
Fall 2025
Decisions and Learning
Taught by Joseph Kable, Jean-Marie Kneeley President’s Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Karen Detlefsen, Professor of Philosophy
Spring 2026
Cook, Eat, Think: The Biology and History of Food
Taught by Kimberly Bowes, BFC Presidential Professor of Classical Studies and Scott Poethig, John H. and Margaret B. Fassitt Professor of Biology
Past Themes
Fall 2024
The Self in Transformation
Spring 2024
Curiosity: Ancient And Modern Thinking About Thinking
Fall 2023
Slow Looking/Slow Reading: Art and Religion Up Close
Why the Robert K. Johnson Integrated Studies Program?
By investigating fundamental ideas under two distinct lenses, drawing from the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences, students sharpen their focus on the similarities—and differences—between the disciplines’ habits of mind. What kinds of questions do art historians ask? What sorts of evidence do economists favor? What kind of answers carry weight with neuroscientists?
The experience hones students’ ability to see connections across disparate areas of knowledge, and to apply those connections to the world’s most pressing questions.