Interdisciplinary Teaching as a Chimera

Burt Thorp, Director of Interdisciplinary Studies, University of North Dakota

Is the concept of interdisciplinary teaching merely a trendy term, the latest fashion in higher education, and a way of renaming what everyone already does in their classrooms? I thought about this while reading a new book by Louis Menand, Harvard English professor and winner of a Pulitzer Prize in history. That book is The Marketplace of Ideas: Reform and Resistance in the American University (Norton, 2010). In his chapter entitled “Interdisciplinarity and Anxiety,” Menand makes the point that interdisciplinarity is neither new nor transformative. (96) He writes that modern disciplines “emerged with the modern research university, between 1870 and 1915.” (97) I perked up at this point in my reading, being reminded of one of my favorite writers, William James, and his 1903 essay “The Ph.D. Octopus”—the title alone indicates his disgust with the pernicious doctorate introduced from German universities. The piece can be found in James’s 1911 collection Memories and Studies and is also widely available online—more on him later. After a quick and interesting tour through the history of higher education, Menand concludes his chapter: “Interdisciplinarity is an administrative name for an anxiety and a hope that are personal.” (125)
Finishing Menand’s book, I could not stop thinking about my own experience teaching both English and history courses at UND. Students in English courses are different than those in history courses—they have a distinct vibe in each. That vibe is really just the students’ varied expectations, especially by the majors who have had other courses in their disciplines. History majors expect a certain kind of course, with a familiar presentation style. So do English majors. Each discipline operates with “underlying habits of thought,” a phrase I picked up from Marjorie Garber’s Academic Instincts (Princeton, 2001; see page 74). And the sprinklings of other majors who appear in an English or history course sometimes assert their disciplinary chops. I had one criminal justice major in a history course explain to me how things were done differently in his major—papers were more report-like, more to the point and concise. Should I have said, “So? This is a history course! Write a long essay.” I didn’t, because I felt a surprising respect for his assertion of disciplinary roots. Perhaps my feeling was an example of anxiety masking as Interdisciplinarity, Menand’s thesis. I am, then, an interdisciplinary teacher who admires disciplinary teaching. I am in awe (awe = a mixture of fear and respect) of the authority and pedigrees of our traditional disciplines, pedigrees that go back to Herodotus and Thucydides in the case of history and to Plato and Aristotle in the case of literary criticism. Interdisciplinary Studies goes back—what?—a few decades (Garber, in her chapter entitled “Discipline Envy,” mentions a 1972 discussion by Roland Barthes of the topic).

I was thinking too about my teaching style. For me the journey from English course to history course takes ten minutes; I finish the first at 9:50 and begin the next at 10:00. As Director of Interdisciplinary Studies this quick transition should not faze me, but it often does. I notice a wrench as I rapidly morph from philologist to historian. Now I firmly believe that the skills of philology and close reading transfer to history and the other way around also! But I do want to be a historian in my history courses and a close reader in my English courses. I detect unrest in the classroom when I get too historical in one and too literary in another, something that happens fairly often. Being interdisciplinary can be uncomfortable. Perhaps this is why a popular model for an interdisciplinary course is team teaching. I have team taught also and found it fun. But one does just sit at ease in one’s discipline and let the other instructor do their thing while waiting and watching to see if the students make connections. Is this interdisciplinary teaching, or simply juxtaposition of disciplines?

Every discipline is interdisciplinary. If that assertion is correct, then all teaching is interdisciplinary teaching. Here is how it works: on the blackboard, place one’s own discipline in the center and then stretch out to each side all the other disciplines that contribute—the more philosophical or theoretical on the left, say, and the more historical or descriptive to the right (it could be the other way). So, for instance, with history in the center, philosophy and theology go on one side and archaeology and textual study on the other. Keep on doing this. I was put to this task years ago by a professor in grad school; there is nothing new about it. I find such a scheme for organizing disciplines implicitly throughout William James’s The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (London and Bombay: Longmans, 1902) as when he writes at the end of Lecture II, “abandoning the extreme generalities which have engrossed us hitherto, I propose that we begin our actual journey by addressing ourselves directly to the concrete facts” or in a footnote when he writes about “lines of disparate conception, each corresponding to some part of the world’s truth, each verified in some degree, each leaving out some part of real experience.” (123)

[Thanks to Bill Caraher for telling me about Louis Menand’s new book.]

Experienced Interdisciplinarity at UND: The Integrated Studies Program

Tami Carmichael, Program Coordinator, Integrated Studies, University of North Dakota

Much is under discussion at the University of North Dakota, and indeed, across the country, about the ways in which higher education needs to shift and change to meet the needs of student who will face the demands of an increasingly integrated and global society. Many are calling for the disintegration of the “silos” of learning and are discussing the perceived artificiality of disciplinary boundaries. Naturally integrative disciplines like Geography are enjoying renewed interest since the broader and more naturally collaborative nature of the field actually provides students with tools and venues that will allow them to meet the emerging needs of the more complex problems they will need to solve.

Whether or not one agrees with the various mechanisms proposed for change, change indeed is called for, and this change seems to be attempting to take the form of integrative and/or interdisciplinary teaching and research. Here on this campus groups are exploring experimental learning models that other institutions are piloting. Dozens of articles in The Chronicle of Higher Education and in other academic journals are praising those academic efforts that first prize interdisciplinary and collaborative work.

Interestingly, one of the most adventurous of these experiments in integrative, interdisciplinary learning started almost 25 years ago right here at the University of North Dakota, when professors Pat Sanborn and Gerry Lawrence decided that the popular cafeteria style of general education did not work and that they were ready to do something bold and daring. They were anxious to create a learning environment where the artificial barriers between academic disciplines would be broken down, where the connections between ideas in various fields could be made evident, and, most importantly, where the students and their learning needs would be at the center of curriculum development.

After researching various learning models, it became evident to Sanborn and Lawrence that the coordinated studies model employed by the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, would allow for the kind of curriculum they had envisioned. Sanborn and Lawrence contacted Evergreen, engaged the help of learning community experts there, wrote and received a major NEH grant, held intensive planning retreats, recruited students, and thus created the Integrated Studies Program at the University of North Dakota. Housed within the Humanities program, Integrated Studies still continues to serve hundreds of students each year, and still operates closely along the lines laid down by the program founders. It is a program aimed at providing first and second year students with an alternative way to begin their university experience, an interdisciplinary, integrative, and student centered academic experience.

Clay Jenkinson, North Dakota author and scholar, and the first Coordinator of Integrated Studies described the new program as one which would not “replace the traditional curriculum but stand respectfully beside it…[and] resist the artificial fragmentation of mental activity and bring new meaning and energy to the basic Arts and Sciences, which we see as the foundation not only of intellectual life, but of one’s preparation for citizenship” (Uherka, 1989). Integrated Studies is now one of the oldest learning communities of its kind in the nation (outside of Evergreen State College which employs the coordinated studies approach at every level of the undergraduate education) and has frequently been referred to as “the great granddaddy of all learning communities” by the National Learning Communities Project Director, Jeanne MacGregor.

Every semester, students who join the Integrated Studies Program have the opportunity to earn credit in each of the university’s required Essential Studies (ES) categories: Humanities, Communication, Social Sciences, and Mathematics, Science & Technology. The ISP courses are team-taught by a five-member faculty team and are student-centered and inquiry-based. Faculty and students meet in class for 15 to 17 hours a week and engage in integrative study of Composition, Humanities, Life or Physical Science, Social Science, Language and Culture, and, often, Drama. In order to avoid separating out study according to discreet, academic disciplines, each semester a new curriculum is developed around a central theme that students and faculty explore through integrated, multi-disciplinary readings and assignments. Besides integrating course material, ISP also strives to create a cohesive learning group – a community of learners, both faculty and students, who travel through all learning experiences together for the academic year. To solidify this learning community and to help students translate academic experiences into life experiences, students and faculty also participate in a required field/camping trip to Theodore Roosevelt National Park (North Unit) each fall, attend concerts and plays together, and often engage in community service learning projects together.

Over the years, ISP faculty members have artfully managed to integrate a variety of seemingly disparate disciplines in order to provide an increasingly cohesive curriculum. One semester saw the integration of Composition, Humanities, Chemistry and History around the theme “Exploration, where are we now?”; while another integrated Geology, Humanities, Archaeology and Composition around the theme “Land, Water, People.” Emphasis is placed on the use of primary documents and trade books rather than text books, and lectures are rarely used. The goal of this model has always been to “put the students’ acts of knowing above the teachers’ acts of teaching and …[involve] the teacher as partner-in-inquiry with her students.” (Finkel, 2001, p. 215). Faculty are not concerned about “covering” each discipline, but about giving students tools that help them “[cultivate] Inquiry Skills and Intellectual Judgment and [foster] Social Responsibility and Civic Engagement.” (Schneider, 2003, p. 5). In addition to bringing issues and ideas from history, philosophy, and science to bear on a topic, students and faculty attempt to apply their observations and discoveries outward, onto events of current social, political, or personal importance.

As both an academic program offering a coordinated studies approach and as a learning community, Integrated Studies is academically rigorous and simultaneously supportive of students’ learning needs and goals: high demands are placed on students’ critical thinking, discussion, and writing skills, but these students are also surrounded by faculty and fellow-students who care about them and with whom they feel comfortable taking personal and academic risks. In order to blend these two learning models, the faculty team working with Integrated Studies crafts a new curriculum every semester that allows for the development of skills and experiences in both areas. Constructing a coordinated studies curriculum within a learning community is important because it provides students with time to reflect on and revisit the ideas and facts they’ve encountered in their research, readings, and discussions and because it creates an environment that encourages, indeed requires, that students make connections between the ideas they encounter in each discipline. Since all of the students in the program are taking all courses together and are all reading the same books and completing the same series of assignments, they are better able to help each other make connections and reflect on what they have all read and studied; they have a shared academic experience.

The Integrated Studies Program was also created to serve as a catalyst for educational reform at UND and throughout the region. The philosophies of the program embrace a student-centered, interactive, integrative learning environment, and assessment data gathered over the years demonstrates that this approach is particularly effective and beneficial for students. Members of the Integrated Studies Program faculty believe, and research supports them, that students learn best in this kind of environment, that “To foster improved thinking…we must create an environment conducive to developing a sense of autonomy within a social context of sensitivity to others….Students need to feel free to take risks, to experiment with alternative behaviors, to make mistakes without being chastised, and to learn from failure” (Barrell, Liebmann & Sigel, 1988, 14-17). The successful 25 year history of this program, the supporting assessment data, and the student response to the pedagogies of interdisciplinarity certainly suggest that this is a model worth exploring as UND looks to supplement the undergraduate learning experience here at UND.

The integrative interdisciplinary philosophy of the program, however, does not mean that ISP faculty discount the other kinds of teaching and learning that take place at UND or at other universities. There are a multiplicity of teaching styles, kinds of learners, and classroom environments. Each has its value and its place in the learning process. What is important to remember, however, is that we must not become entrenched in seeing teaching or learning in one specific way. We must remember to continually examine our teaching methods, always keeping students’ best interests in mind. The classroom needs to be a place centered around student learning, and as such, the best methods for achieving and encouraging student learning must be used. Teachers and institutions should not be afraid of change. No curriculum should exist simply because “that’s the way things have always been.” Likewise, curricular reform should not shape itself around the moving targets of national trends. Innovation should be encouraged and supported, but university faculty must always remember that the greatest goal is to encourage and engage students to learn and to take responsibility for their own education. Integrated Studies faculty do their best to ensure that this happens to the students who spend a semester or two in the program.

Works Cited:

Barrell, J., Liebmann, R., & Sigel, I. (1988). “Fostering thoughtful self direction in students.” Educational leadership. 45(7) (pp. 14-17).

Finkel, D.L. (2001). “Should the teacher know the answer? Two ways to organize interdisciplinary study around inquiry.” In B.L. Smith & J. McCann (Eds.), Reinventing ourselves: interdisciplinary education, collaborative learning, and experimentation in higher education (pp. 221-229). Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing.

Schneider, C.G. (2003). Liberal education and integrative learning. In Issues in integrative studies,21, (pp.1-8).

Uherka, D. (1989) Unpublished minutes and recollections of the creation of the integrated studies program at the university of north dakota.

Reflecting on Interdisciplinary Teaching

Bret Weber, Department of Social Work, University of North Dakota

Bret has a Ph.D. in history and has taught in departments of History both at UND and elsewhere; he also has a M.S.W. and currently is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Work.

Interdisciplinary teaching proposes to help students apply and transfer knowledge, methods, and skills from supposedly distinct fields of study. One implied benefit is that this helps translate knowledge across the university, as well as from the classroom to lives and jobs beyond the academy. It is a popular concept that university leaders encourage in their rhetoric, though entrenched structures that grew up with educational institutions provide a formidable blockade that prevents most of us with even half an interest from actually doing it.

Some of the obvious problems include the fact that disciplines often have their own unique jargon for broad concepts. There are also various professional biases, egos, and inferiority complexes. Interdisciplinary efforts are also made problematic by administrative aspects including different semester schedules, accountability standards, and even arcane matters of scheduling and teacher deployment that vary not only from department to department, but also from college to college.

Additional distinctions may be less obvious until one actually takes the full plunge and moves from one discipline to the other. Regardless of credentials, training, and experience, there may be a nagging tendency to view the ‘newcomer’ as an outsider and to question the legitimacy of the boundary crosser. Similarly, there may be different attitudes regarding the balance between teaching, scholarship, and service, and there may even be strikingly different definitions or views of what these things mean. For instance, disciplines value books and journal articles according to their own calculus, and service may mean obligation to dull department meetings in one discipline and broad ethical commitments to social justice in another.

There are also dramatic differences in terms of the student populations. These might be gender-based: some disciplines have a fairly even mix where others may be dominated by a single gender. There is also a difference in terms of how the students come to the classroom: Professional programs tend toward cohort models, and when students ‘travel’ as a group they may develop cliques, anxieties, and distinct cultures that affect the classroom in ways that are more dynamic than in a classroom in which most of the students and the instructor are meeting for the first time at the beginning of the semester.

On balance, however, I believe the journey so far contains more rewards than perils. I have found interdisciplinary teaching to be especially beneficial in bridging the approaches of more traditional academic studies and professional programs. In those cases, the ‘real-world’ focus of ‘applied’ studies helps students to understand the practical potential of their university courses. On the flip side, the academic approach brings an intellectual rigor to applied studies that pushes students beyond simply “jumping through the hoops.”