Creating Interdisciplinarity , livre ebook

305

pages

English

Ebooks

2001

Écrit par
Lisa R. Lattuca

Publié par
Vanderbilt University Press

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305

pages

English

Ebook

2001

Lire un extrait

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne En savoir plus

Publié par

Vanderbilt University Press

Date de parution

30 septembre 2001

Nombre de lectures

EAN13

9780826591364

Langue

English

Poids de l'ouvrage

1 Mo

Interdisciplinarity, a favorite buzzword of faculty and administrators, has been appropriated to describe so many academic pursuits that it is virtually meaningless. With a writing style that is accessible, fluid, and engaging, Lisa Lattuca remedies this confusion with an original conceptualization of interdisciplinarity based on interviews with faculty who are engaged in its practice.

Whether exploring the connections between apparently related disciplines, such as English and women's studies, or such seemingly disparate fields as economics and theology, Lattuca moves away from previous definitions based on the degrees of integration across disciplines and instead focuses on the nature of the inquiry behind the work. She organizes her findings around the processes through which faculty pursue interdisciplinarity, the contexts (institutional, departmental, and disciplinary) in which faculty are working, and the ways in which those contexts relate to and affect the interdisciplinary work. Her findings result in useful suggestions for individuals concerned with the meaning of faculty work, the role and impact of disciplines in academe today, and the kinds of issues that should guide the evaluation of faculty scholarship.

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Publié par

Vanderbilt University Press

Date de parution

30 septembre 2001

Nombre de lectures

EAN13

9780826591364

Langue

English

Poids de l'ouvrage

1 Mo

Éducation Education

Creating Interdisciplinarity Interdisciplinary Research and Teaching among College and University Faculty

Lisa R. Lattuca

Creating Interdisciplinarity

vanderbilt issues in higher education is a timely series that focuses on the three core functions of higher education: teaching, research, and service. Interdisci-plinary in nature, it concentrates not only on how these core functions are carried out in colleges and universities but also on the contributions they make to larger issues of social and economic development, as well as the various organizational, political, psychological, and social forces that influence their fulfillment and evolution.

series editor John M. Braxton Peabody College, Vanderbilt University

editorial advisory board Ann E. Austin (Michigan State University) Marcia B. Baxter Magolda (Miami University) Alan E. Bayer (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University) Ellen M. Brier (Vanderbilt University) Clifton F. Conrad (University of Wisconsin) Mary Frank Fox (Georgia Institute of Technology) Roger L. Geiger (The Pennsylvania State University) Hugh D. Graham (Vanderbilt University) Lowell Hargens (Ohio State University) James C. Hearn (University of Minnesota) George D. Kuh (Indiana University) Michael T. Nettles (University of Michigan) Joan S. Stark (University of Michigan) John C. Smart (University of Memphis) William G. Tierney (University of Southern California) Caroline S. Turner (Arizona State University)

Creating IInte nterdisciplinarity rdisciplinary Research and Teaching

among College and

University Faculty

Lisa R. Lattuca

vanderbilt university press Nashville

This book is printed on acid-free paper. Manufactured in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lattuca, Lisa R. Creating interdisciplinarity : interdisciplinary research and teaching among college and university faculty / Lisa R. Lattuca.— 1st ed. p. cm. — (Vanderbilt issues in higher education) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN0-8265-1367-0 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN0-8265-1383-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Universities and colleges—Curricula. 2. Interdisciplinary approach in education. I. Title. II. Series. LB2361 .L33 2001 378.1'99—dc21 2001003443

C o n t e n t s

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1 Considering Interdisciplinarity Chapter 2 Disciplining Knowledge Chapter 3 Profiling Interdisciplinarity Chapter 4 Constructing Interdisciplinarity Chapter 5 Pursuing Interdisciplinarity: Research and Teaching Processes Chapter 6 Abiding Interdisciplinarity: The Impact of Academic Contexts Chapter 7 Tracing Interdisciplinarity: Scholarly Outcomes Chapter 8 Realizing Interdisciplinarity

Appendix: Study Design and Conduct Bibliography Index

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Confidentiality prevents me from naming most of the people whose participa-tion was essential to this study. Although the faculty who took part in this re-search must remain anonymous, they should not go unrecognized. Their words and experiences are the lifeblood of this book, and I thank them for the gift of their time, which is always in short supply. Confidentiality also prevents me from thanking the administrators at each research site who allowed me access to their campuses and provided assistance in developing a pool of po-tential participants. Their knowledge of their respective faculties was critical to accomplishing this work. I would also like to thank a number of individuals who were instrumental (in the most meaningful sense of the word) in bringing this study and this book to fruition. Bill Newell, professor of interdisciplinary studies at Miami University of Ohio and a foundational figure in the study of interdisciplinarity, encouraged me, invited me to one of his workshops, and provided a forum in which to conduct the exploratory focus group. Julie Thompson Klein, profes-sor of humanities at Wayne State University and author of numerous works on interdisciplinarity, met with me and generously shared drafts of works in progress. Both of these experiences were central to the development of this study. Lois Voigt, who in her latest incarnation is a doctoral student at Loyola University Chicago, read this manuscript too many times. Maintaining, to my surprise, her good humor, she edited my writing, checked my organization, and questioned my excesses. I am very grateful for her diligence and her com-forting presence. I am also thankful to Loyola University and the School of Education for funding the assistantships that provided me with so intelligent and generous a colleague. Joan Stark, professor emerita of the University of

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Michigan, was present when this book was but a thought. I have been graced with Joan’s guidance and unending support for many years and doubt that I can point to a professional accomplishment in the last ten years for which she is not in some way responsible. May she never retire from mentoring and may she never tire of me. A few other individuals deserve thanks for absorbing the shrapnel of my anxiety as I worked on this volume: my mother, Josephine Lattuca, who has no idea how soothing her voice can be; Ed Blucher, whose patience and intel-ligence always astound me; Gail Elden, who keeps me focused; and mymost excellentcolleagues at Loyola: Jennifer Grant Haworth, Terry E. Williams, and Terri Pigott. I thank everyone for their support and beg their indulgence on the next project.

Considering Interdisciplinarity

To the untrained eye the world is interdisciplinary—or, more accurately, nondisciplinary. In Western society our at-tempts to understand it, however, are often discipline-based. In Cartesian fashion we use our analytic skills to divide the world into smaller and smaller units, hoping that in under-standing the parts we will eventually understand the whole. Our colleges and universities, and to a lesser extent our el-ementary and secondary schools, teach us by word and deed that knowledge is divided into academic disciplines. The more schooling we have, the more entrenched our sense of disciplinarity can become; we are introduced to disciplines in elementary school and learn to live by them in high school and college. Disciplines provide the rationale for the departmental structure of U.S. colleges and universities and strongly in-fluence faculty appointments; hiring, promotion, and ten-ure practices; teaching assignments; student recruitment and enrollment; and even accounting practices. Those structural and operational realities link the fortunes of in-terdisciplinary research and teaching to the disciplines. Moreover, despite increases in interdisciplinary activity in postsecondary education, disciplinary frameworks still orga-nize most faculty members’ understandings and interpreta-tions of information and experience. The extent to which this assumption will hold true in the future, of course, is

Chapter 1

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