Many universities share the same internal structure. Most colleges and universities tend to organize themselves into departments or programs. They are in turn associated with coherent bodies of knowledge sometimes called disciplines. Often the faculty in each of them belong to the same professional associations; they largely agree on which peer-reviewed journals are most influential; they share basic notions of the key questions that are at the cutting-edge of the discipline; they largely agree on the most important scholars in their area; they can identify the best departments in the field.
Departments thus become strong influences on the course of research and scholarship in the field. In the natural and social sciences, the external research funding agencies (e.g., the National Science Foundation) tend to be organized in the same way. Through peer review they assure that the intellectual critique of proposed work is securely grounded in traditional disciplines.
Of course, the world doesn’t have the same organizational boxes as universities. There are professions, clusters of occupations requiring certification by professional accrediting association and usually associated with education units (e.g., the law profession and law schools, the medical profession and medical schools). But many occupations require knowledge from several disciplines simultaneously. Successful leaders in all sectors combine the knowledge and perspective in novel ways.
Increasingly, the world of research is acknowledging that some of the weaknesses in human understanding lie at the interfaces of traditional disciplines. And, hence, research programs are being proposed that are focused on combining two or more fields to create real breakthroughs in our understanding of how the world works.
A modern research university has the obligation to produce new knowledge and understanding. This means that while keeping the traditional disciplines strong, it also must nurture interdisciplinary activities. The newly endowed Georgetown environmental initiative is a great example, as a blending of science, business, public policy, the humanities, health, law and international relations. As the payoffs of interdisciplinary approaches become obvious, more of this will be happening, I suspect.
Faculty who move between disciplines, who study and contribute to the literature in multiple domains are valuable in this emerging world. Many universities are deliberately increasing the number of joint faculty appointments to multiple programs. When such faculty become active members of two departments/programs, they can act as catalysts for interdisciplinary research through their collaborations. Georgetown, like our peer institutions, needs to constantly be on the watch for such opportunities.
Bravo! I couldn’t agree more…from the student perspective, as our students continue to increase in caliber, we are witnessing an increased demand for disciplines that cross boundaries – not create them. Our students are eager for programs and opportunities to integrate their knowledge and explore cross-disciplinary research. Let me know how I can help!
What a breath of fresh air! Promoting inter-disciplinary work is exactly what a university ought to be able to do best: it is a place filled with disciplines that are right next to each other, often just down the hall or across the quad. I welcome this message. It challenges older and worthy values to respond to the demands of the new world. Very exciting. In the Graduate Liberal Studies Program, every class benefits from the students’s different academic disciplines and life-experiences. Thanks!
Health is something that most universities fail to address, while I think it should be THE subject taught in any educational institution.
After all, what good is any, even the best, knowledge, if you aren’t healthy enough to use it and benefit from it?
One should first “put on their own breathing mask before assisting others,” as they would say it on an airplane. Get your health in check first and know your body – only then should you worry about other stuff.
Excellent initiative!
An increasingly important “common ground” for conducting interdisciplinary research is data and quantitative analysis. While we do not lack quantitative experts at Georgetown, we do need to improve our computational infrastructure. I, along with several others, have been advocating this at Georgetown over the past few years and I truly hope that the Provost office will make this a priority.
I believe that investment in data sciences and computational infrastructure will be key to our future growth and role in the broader academic community.
I entirely approve the spirit of these provostial representations on the ” edges ” or interstices of knowledge and would submit that we, in foreign language departments, have been exploring disciplinary interfaces by necessity for at least the past twenty years. I would also submit that, philosophically speaking, the crux of the matter is an epistemic posture that has transcended the illusion of exhaustivity within any given territory of purported knowledge, thereby opening oneself up to a more supple stance toward operational paradigms. In other words what the French would call ” le discours infini “.
Some of the folks at GUMC and NHS have been actively engaged in creating interdisciplinary education experiences within the health sciences (i.e., medical students, nursing students and health system administration students). Identified by the Institute of Medicine as a priority, these intiatives are increasingly required by accrediting agencies (not to mention they improve patient outcomes!). Speaking from experience, developing quality interdisciplinary education requires much “un-silo-ing”
Dear Provost, You are speaking “music to my and 1000s others’ ears” – our Graduate Liberal Studies at Georgetown – served for nearly 40 years by faculty of GU disciplines who developed and taught interdisciplinary values/ethics focused courses for the BALS, MALS, and in 2005 DLS students, nearly 2000 graduates, myself included, MALS ’82 and more recently LSAdvancedCert ’10. “Out of the box, is the way to go!” Thanks!