ACS Interdisciplinary Opportunities Initiative

Part of the New Models of Cooperation in Three Challenged and Critical Areas Grant
Funded by the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation

[Interdisciplinary studies and integrative learning] offer a powerful complement to traditional disciplinary education. They provide synthesis that compliments disciplinary analysis, breadth to accompany its depth, and real world personal application to go with its abstract theory. In short, they offer educational balance. Students who have experienced integrative as well as disciplinary education should be more fully education and should be better able to make use of what they have learned. William H. Newell, “Powerful Pedagogies,” Smith, Barbara Leigh and John McCann (eds). Reinventing Ourselves: Interdisciplinary Education, Collaborative Learning, and Experimentation in Higher Education (Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing Co, 2001), 197.

In considering the question, “How do we provide the education that students need to be responsible and productive global citizens,” two external realities exist that make interdisciplinary opportunities both critical and challenging in a liberal arts education. First, ours is a rapidly changing world, where international vision, a mature understanding of human experience, access to extensive knowledge, and the ability to look at issues from multiple perspectives are essential skills. Second, research of all types, be it casual or formal, is becoming more and more interdisciplinary in nature. Preparing students for these two realities calls for a breadth of understanding of multiple disciplines and how they relate to each other, as well as the ability to find, to evaluate, to integrate and to synthesize information that will inform decisions, policies, and practices in every phase of one’s social and business life. It is interesting to note that “Over half of all colleges and universities in the United States now offer an interdisciplinary component to their required liberal education program.” (Newell, “Powerful Pedagogies,” 208.)

While some interdisciplinary opportunities already exist in ACS institutions, the consortium keenly sees the value of refining and enhancing existing programs and developing new interdisciplinary opportunities. One of the challenges in doing this is to design opportunities that help students understand the mutual relationship of the disciplines and have a breadth of understanding that will stand them in good stead in all of their future interactions.

In order to do this effectively, and to foster innovative practices, it is critical to promote a faculty culture that moves from specialization to cross-disciplinary dialogue. This means that departments and faculty need encouragement (structured opportunities and rewards) to work together to help students recognize and experience disciplinary relationships, even in non- interdisciplinary courses. This kind of dialogue must take place if effective curricular changes are to be made. However, changing the culture is not solely a faculty or a curricular issue. It also must extend to extracurricular spheres, including advising, counseling and special programs. Thinking in interdisciplinary ways and helping students understand the connections among disciplines and what these connections mean in the real world are campus-wide responsibilities.

The interdisciplinary web pages that may be accessed through the navigation bar on the left-hand side of this page are offered as resources and as dissemination tools, in an effort to encourage and support dialogue about and the intentional development of interdisciplinary opportunities across ACS campuses. The ACS Interdisciplinary Task Force offers working definitions [make “definitions” a link to the definitions page] of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary, plus examples of interdisciplinary syllabi [make “syllabi” a link to the syllabi pages] used in interdisciplinary courses at ACS member institutions. And be sure to visit the Mini-Grants page for information about this special opportunity for faculty and staff at ACS campuses.

We want this site to be a practical and useful resource, one that sparks the imagination, and one that offers encouragement to those who are interested in creating interdisciplinary opportunities. Please let us know if there are additional resources that you would like to see added to this site. Send suggestions to acs@collegs.org.

Interdisciplinary Survey Summary Report (May 2008)