What Works and What Doesn't

Tanya Augsburg, Stuart Henry, William H. Newell and Rick Szostak “Conclusion,” in Tanya Augsburg and Stuart Henry, eds., The Politics of Interdisciplinary Studies: Interdisciplinary Transformation in Undergraduate American Higher Education. McFarland Press, 2009. 227-56 surveys the several case studies in that book and draws several conclusions regarding factors that seem to facilitate the continuity of interdisciplinary programs:

What works:

• Being self-conscious about interdisciplinarity: Students and professors should be able to articulate the meaning of (quality) interdisciplinarity and integration.

• Being connected to disciplinary programs: teaching courses that are useful for disciplinary students, drawing on discipline-based professors to teach or participate in governance

• Experimentation: Successful interdisciplinary programs rarely emerge fully-formed, and a healthy dialogue regarding program improvements is very useful.

• But not encouraging continual curricular revolution. This is both too time-consuming and sends the wrong signal to the rest of the university regarding the integrity of interdisciplinary programs. The articulation of best practices on this website is intended to guide programs to a solid curriculum and pedagogy.

• Providing broadly based governance: Where possible it is very useful – both intellectually and strategically – to involve interested scholars from disciplines in program governance.

• Establishing institutional incentives for cooperation: team teaching programs or incentives for disciplines and interdisciplinary programs to cooperate in hiring

• Stressing skills: Regular assessment of the skills interdisciplinary students master can be a powerful argument for the continuation of the program.

• Financing: Some programs attract external grant funding (though this may not last forever). Others make a case that they attract students that would otherwise not attend the university. It is important to demand needed resources, but also to ensure that programs are not seen to be excessively costly.

• Providing appropriate administrative support: this is necessary but not sufficient for program survival.

Several factors that should ‘work’ did not seem to have provided as much help as was hoped:

• National and international reputations as cutting-edge interdisciplinary programs do not guarantee continuation.

• Nor do laudatory graduates

• Complacency: Each new senior administrator needs to be educated on the value of quality interdisciplinarity. “eternal vigilance is the price of interdisciplinarity.”

• Proclaiming the virtues of interdisciplinarity: That battle has essentially been won. The battle today is to convince others in the university that self-conscious quality interdisciplinarity is superior to superficial interdisciplinarity. And that requires that interdisciplinary programs are internally self-conscious and themselves pursue best practices.

• Careful management. Programs are often seen to be unduly expensive even if careful accounting suggests otherwise. Programs are sometimes underfunded due to mistaken perceptions of high cost.