Founded five years ago as part of the University's focus on interdisciplinary study, ESPP is one of the most wide-ranging concentration in the College. Concentrators must take 16 half courses in the natural and social sciences, including chemistry, mathematics, biology, economics and government.

Courses that pull it all together are few and far between, concentrators say.

"My main problem with ESPP is that there are a smattering of courses within different disciplines but there isn't enough to pull it together into a coherent program," Kaiser says. "Courses like Dan and Glenn's pull it together to make it a coherent discipline.

So when she heard the seminar had been cancelled, she began a letter-writing campaign to lobby University officials to maintain the program.

"[Perlman and Adelson] called me to tell me that the course had been cancelled, and I said, 'I'm going to do something about it.'"

Former and current students of the seminar joined the letter-writing campaign, saying they were disappointed with the decision to drop the course.

ESPP concentrator Michael J. Rest '00 says he disapproves of the University's decision to discontinue the seminar because he saw the class as a central part of the concentration. The biodiversity seminar, he says, was primarily responsible for his understanding of the complicated and many-faceted nature of the concentration.

"I think it's a ridiculous decision," Rest says. "I've been pretty disappointed with the ESPP classes and the introductory classes, and this tutorial has really focused the information. I'm just really disappointed that they're letting it go."