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Curricular Innovation/Working Paper #1
INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES
Overview
The Committee on Educational Policy (CEP) is bringing the issue of interdisciplinary studies as a separate item for discussion because it was regularly raised in our canvas for ideas and because it constitutes a relatively coherent issue. Thus the CEP concluded that it is a good focus for discussion as the process of assembling a curriculum reform package begins, even though it will clearly connect to the larger upcoming issues of curriculum innovation including competencies, formats of instruction and the four year trajectory of the curriculum. Archive 1 on this website contains all the proposals and comments the CEP has received on this issue. We are grateful to the authors for their permission to post the entire texts of their messages. The CEP received several extensive proposals for an interdisciplinary initiative and a large number of suggestions and pertinent comments on interdisciplinary work at the college, including several ideas for new programs. Some have urged interdisciplinary work as the hallmark of a liberal arts education, others have cautioned against its lack of rigor and its faddishness. The authors of the more extensive proposals all think a major new initiative of varying scale is needed. They call for a new administrative structure and space to foster interdisciplinary work at the college. Others argue that interdisciplinary work is already going on in individual classes, programs and departments as well as in the heads of our students, so no new initiative is needed. This memo seeks to frame community discussion of the interdisciplinary aspect of possible curricular initiatives by posing five questions and briefly indicating the CEP's thinking on each.
Questions and Issues
What is interdisciplinary study?
Organization of knowledge, the character of individual disciplines, and the relation of those disciplines to the College's administrative structure are endlessly interesting issues, which invite and need sustained conversation. There is no unanimity on what interdisciplinary study actually is. All the members of the CEP recognize that interdisciplinary learning occurs de facto in the experience of our students as they study in four different departments or fields each term, discover unexpected connections and compare the modes of inquiry and values reflected in each of their courses. The CEP is in agreement that raising the consciousness of this fact for students and faculty is desirable because interdisciplinary learning is at the heart of a liberal arts education. There is presently no place in our curriculum where we model in a high profile manner how interdisciplinary work should be done.
The CEP recognizes there are three arenas of interdisciplinary teaching:All members of the CEP recognize the value of each of these arenas, but think that new initiatives to support both the second and the third are more appropriate. Some members feel that more weight should be given to the second arena, especially recognizing the already well-established team taught interdepartmental program courses like WGST 101 and Neuroscience 201 and the Political Economy program. Other members of the CEP think that new initiatives should focus on cross-divisional interdisciplinary studies. This is what we do less of, with the exception of Environmental Studies, and where the focus of a new initiative should be. For them interdisciplinarity should normally involve substantive engagement with work done in at least two divisions. The CEP looks forward to gaining a sense of the faculty as a whole on the definition and character of interdisciplinary study.
- individual classes where the instructor draws on a variety of interdisciplinary tools to approach a topic;
- in departments where the subdisciplines of a particular field are deployed and in programs where crossing of interdisciplinary and departmental boundaries occur;
- across divisions where instructors from the different divisions gather together to examine a common theme.
Do we need a higher profile site for interdisciplinary work, a fourth division?
All the extensive proposals envision some sort of new administrative space, which the CEP has come to call a "fourth division." There are three important features that characterize of this fourth division:What should the relation of a new division be to existing programs and clusters?
- a commitment of some faculty full time equivalent (FTE) appointments (anywhere from 2 to 15);
- establishment of faculty teams focused on a particular topic who would be assigned those FTEs;
- a sunsetting procedure which means that the teams would only be together for somewhere between two and six years.
The discussion of an interdisciplinary initiative of this sort has taken place in the context of a discussion of the condition of programs and clusters at the college. The CEP recognizes that programs and clusters are an important place where interdisciplinary work goes on. The CEP has considered the current state of programs, recognizing their sometimes precarious condition. The complicated and sometimes conflicted relation of programs and departments has also been reviewed. Finally, the significant unclarity within the community surrounding the operation of the more recent cluster system has been discussed.
The relation of a proposed fourth division to our existing department and program structure is still not very clear. In some ways such an initiative is a natural expansion of Interdisciplinary Program for Experimental and Cross-Disciplinary Studies (IPECS), which has served well as an incubator for several interesting initiatives over the years. However, it moves beyond the IPECS model in two important and interesting ways. First, there is a commitment of FTEs to such a division structure. Second it assumes a continuing change in content of the work done in that division, though some projects might spin off from it into new clusters, programs or even departments. Some members of the CEP think that this fourth division might serve both as an incubator and also resuscitator of existing programs. Others feel that all programs might be administratively moved into this fourth division. The CEP recognizes that the tensions that exist between departmental and program needs, especially in the area of staffing, would be exacerbated by the establishment of a fourth division. The fact that such a division would be able to compensate departments with portions of an FTE might alleviate the conflict some, but it is clear that the 'gift' of a portion of an FTE for a limited period requires a great deal of departmental work to utilize. The CEP hopes faculty discussion will focus on the following questions. Do we need such a new administrative space? What shape should it take? What level of resources should be devoted to it? What would be the consequences of such a structure for programs and departments?
Do we want to encourage courses or themes?
Most of the proposals contain specific suggestions for foci of interdisciplinary initiatives. (Please refer to the documents on the web site for complete detail.) They suggest one or more organizing themes. These themes are of various kinds. Some are policy issues (health and disease, biological/chemical weapons, north/south), some comparative historical study (in times of plague, cities, regional and cross-regional study); some societal and cultural change (media and culture, population) and finally some are more abstract issues (mind and brain, language, structure and complexity, history and memory). The CEP has come to distinguish between a thematic approach and a course approach to an interdisciplinary initiative. When there is a group of courses arising out of the work of a faculty team the CEP has come to call this the thematic approach. When an individual course focusing on a topic and perhaps team-taught is at issue, the CEP has come to call this the course approach. The CEP is undecided whether the new administrative space should encourage the development of themes or courses or whether both should occur. Most members of the CEP are attracted to the thematic approach because it will provide the opportunity for significant cross-fertilization in faculty teams and have a higher profile. But the CEP is very concerned that too strong a commitment to the thematic will have two negative consequences. Since no more than one or two themes can be undertaken in a year, some potential faculty teams will be disappointed and their work put on hiatus if not lost. Also the CEP is concerned that a strong thematic approach will leave smaller initiatives involving just one or two faculty in the lurch. The CEP looks forward to faculty and wider community reflection on how a thematic initiative might be balanced with encouraging less sweeping but equally attractive single course developments.
What educational impact and involvement of students do we seek with this initiative?
All interdisciplinary initiatives would provide the opportunity for faculty to work together to establish new areas of shared inquiry that might possibly also shape individual research projects. Not all faculty members will or should be interested, but the CEP thinks that there is a strong faculty sentiment, reflecting larger cultural developments, that makes encouraging interdisciplinary work timely and desirable for faculty morale and development. A high profile initiative in this area makes sense from the side of the faculty and is especially appropriate for a liberal arts college whose size and resources make such cooperative efforts relatively easy. From our sampling of student sentiment, interest also seems high, but we need to articulate what impact such an initiative should have on the curriculum and for students. As a base line the CEP has concluded that the goal of any initiative in this area must be the production of new courses. The CEP is in agreement that interdisciplinary work does not rise to the level of a competency as such and should not be required, though some of the course themes might fit under other competencies. The CEP is attracted to the effect that a sustained high profile theme might have on wider campus intellectual life by signaling common topics of inquiry that might generate lectures, conferences and other events on a yearly basis, perhaps involving the Oakley Center quite directly in this wider process. The CEP is also attracted to the potential ways that student research assistants might be involved in the development of these courses, providing opportunities for students to work with faculty on the common project of developing courses and perhaps also individual research projects that might spin off from this work. The proposals the CEP has received, however, envision rather different curricular impacts from an initiative. Therefore the CEP looks forward to faculty and community discussion about what the actual shape of the curricular impact of an interdisciplinary initiative can and should be.
Archive 1 - Interdisciplinary Study