What is transdisciplinary?

Transdisciplinary work takes place in the context of disciplinary organization. The discipline is so familiar that we rarely attend to its nature. It’s history is certainly fascinating, recalling distinctions between disciples (disciplined apprenticeship) and doctors (indoctrination) and between the directive arts and the objective sciences.[1] Today’s disciplines are communities of scholars.[2] Community requires cohesion and this is guaranteed by shared subject matter, methods, conceptual frameworks, traditions and a recognized history. Disciplinary norms are sustained, perhaps strengthened, by the existence of professional journals, associations, textbooks, and a standardized curriculum. Standard graduate programs serve as gatekeepers; hiring and tenure procedures preserve the distinctions.[3] This specialization is important because it facilitates the ability to focus on fine-grained problems and acquire deeper knowledge in a subject matter. Professionalization, too, is important, as it sets rigorous standards for relevance, acceptability and credibility. There are thus good reasons to acknowledge and support disciplinary work. But cohesion is not without consequence. As with species, all intellectual reproductive behavior takes place within the group; there is usually nothing sexy about outsiders.

Rethinking Interdisciplinarity

Now available online: RETHINKING INTERDISCIPLINARITY ACROSS THE SOCIAL SCIENCES AND NEUROSCIENCES by Felicity Callard and Des Fitzgerald

This book offers a provocative account of interdisciplinary research across the neurosciences, social sciences and humanities. Setting itself against standard accounts of interdisciplinary 'integration,' and rooting itself in the authors' own experiences, the book establishes a radical agenda for collaboration across these disciplines. Rethinking Interdisciplinarity does not merely advocate interdisciplinary research, but attends to the hitherto tacit pragmatics, affects, power dynamics, and spatial logics in which that research is enfolded. Understanding the complex relationships between brains, minds, and environments requires a delicate, playful and genuinely experimental interdisciplinarity, and this book shows us how it can be done.

From PelgraveConnect

Integrative Learning and Interdisciplinary Studies

Contextuality, conflict, and change are the defining parameters of this kind of learning. Contextuality is a different metaphor of knowledge and education than unity, which assumed consistent, logical relations within a linear framework with the expectation of achieving certainty and universality. Contextuality accepts the contingent character of knowledge and action. Students need to tolerate ambiguity and paradox if they are to take grounded stands in the face of multiple and sometimes conflicting perspectives. The relational skills they gain also foster the ability to adapt knowledge in unexpected and changing contexts. The answers they seek and the problems they will need to solve as workers, parents, and citizens are not “in the book.” They will require integrative interdisciplinary thinking

- from Klein, J. T. (2005). Integrative learning and interdisciplinary studies. Peer Review, 7(4), 8-10.

A Bibliography for Beginners

My introductory course for the MA in Integrative Studies includes a lengthy bibliography on the history and nature of interdisciplinary research. I'll share it below.

Augsburg, T. (2014). Becoming transdisciplinary: The emergence of the transdisciplinary individual. World Futures, 70(3-4), 233-247.

Austin, W., Park, C., & Goble, E. (2008). From interdisciplinary to transdisciplinary research: a case study. Qualitative Health Research, 18(4), 557-564.

Baldwin Jr, D. C. (2007). Some historical notes on interdisciplinary and interprofessional education and practice in health care in the USA. Journal of interprofessional care, 21(sup1), 23-37.

Bechtel, W. (1986). The nature of scientific integration. In Integrating scientific disciplines (pp. 3-52). Springer Netherlands.

Interdisciplinarity and complexity

In recent decades, the ideas of interdisciplinarity and complexity have become increasingly entwined. This convergence invites an exploration of the links and their implications. The implications span the nature of knowledge, the structure of the university, the character of problem solving, the dialogue between science and humanities, and the theoretical relationship of the two underlying ideas.

Klein, J. T. (1984). Interdisciplinarity and complexity: An evolving relationship. structure, 71, 72.

Academic Tribes

From Becher, T., & Trowler, P. (2001). Chapter One. "Landscapes, Tribal Territories and Academic Cultures" in Academic tribes and territories: Intellectual enquiry and the culture of disciplines. McGraw-Hill Education (UK). 

The first edition of this book, published over a decade ago, mapped the territory of academic knowledge at the time and traced the links between the academic disciplines into which that knowledge had coalesced and the cultures of the academics engaged in them. Since then there have been major shifts in the topography of academic knowledge and more significantly, in the very landscape in which it lies: not only in higher education (HE) institutions and systems at the national and international level but also in the socio-economic contexts within which they operate. We can describe these shifts as structural in the sense that, as they occur, there are changes in long-standing sets of practices in different locales among the academic tribes which are the concern of this book.

From Anamaria Dutceac Segesten. (2012, December 16). Thinking about Academic Tribes. Retrieved June 30, 2015, from https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/university-venus/thinking-about-academic-tribes.

The general and global trend has been towards fragmentation/interdisciplinarity and a flourishing of disciplines. There are now very specific fields of inquiry that did not exist 25 years ago, from my own area of specialization, “European Studies”, to “Queer Studies” or “Visual Cultures” or you name it – whichever specific domain that is entitled to define a territory of knowledge with its own boundaries.

Interdisciplinary Teaching and Learning

A very nice list of sources related to interdisciplinary teaching and learning can be found at Miami University Office of Undergraduate Education.

Cluster hiring can lead to increased faculty diversity

Cluster hiring is used to bring multiple faculty into inter- or transdisciplinary research areas or curricular programs. According to Laura Severin,

Initially, institutions may be lured to new interdisciplinary initiatives by the promise of federal research dollars, but there are often other, equally important motivators. Students are demanding academic programs focused on real-world issues. Employers are asking for graduates who can work in teams across disciplinary specialties. And, despite budget cuts, governmental agencies, nonprofits, and businesses are looking to higher education to help them solve the "big problems," such as global climate change, food security, health care, political instability, and new-age literacy. Cluster hiring would seem to move us forward into this new, more urgently collaborative world.

Now a new report suggests that cluster hiring has a positive impact on diversity.

A new report from the Coalition for Urban Serving Universities, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, and the Association of American Medical Colleges, which have partnered as Urban Universities for HEALTH, tackles those questions and concludes that cluster hiring -- when done right -- is a powerful way to build both institutional excellence and faculty diversity.

“Although the process was originally designed to expand interdisciplinary research, [cluster hiring] also impacts both faculty diversity and components of institutional climate, including the learning environment, collaboration, community engagement and success of faculty from all backgrounds,” reads the report, which identifies diversity not only in terms of race, ethnicity and gender but also perspective, ideology and methodology.

Cluster hiring programs, it continues, “have the potential to improve institutional excellence over all by breaking down silos, reallocating resources to benefit the whole institution and attracting innovative, nontraditional scholars.”

New report says cluster hiring can lead to increased faculty diversity | InsideHigherEd

The Collaborative Virtues

Collaborating with other people is hard. Few of us are born knowing how to do it. Odd though it might sound, we have to learn, by conscious reflection, how to work successfully with others. And so we should take care to identify and occasionally nurture what one might term ‘the collaborative virtues’, the set of psychological traits on which good teamwork depends.

The Collaborative Virtues | The Book of Life

Seven Revolutions | Center for Strategic and International Studies

A good example of a transdisciplinary curriculum can be found in the 7 Revolutions program developed and supported by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Have you considered how a global population of 9 billion people by the middle of the century will impact your life? What are the challenges for the availability of food, water, and energy resources? How will society balance the benefits of technological innovation and advanced communication with the threat of cyber security? How will global economic integration and governance affect trade, markets, and commerce overall?  

To answer questions like these, the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) embarked on an initiative in 1992 to address and analyze the key policy challenges that policymakers, business figures, and other leaders will face out to the year 2035 & beyond. It is an effort to promote strategic thinking about the long-term trends that too few take the time to consider. Though our research is constantly evolving, we created this guide as a snapshot for what we call the Seven Revolutions.  

The key points of this research have been captured in an exciting, fast-paced, multimedia presentation that has been given around the world—from governments to private corporations to academia to nongovernmental organizations. Seven Revolutions is constantly updated to reflect the latest data analysis and available technologies. It is an effective tool for pushing audiences to think outside of their areas of expertise and beyond their familiar planning parameters.

The topics include Population, Resource Management, Technology, Information and Knowledge, Economics, Security, and Governance. Each of these presents problems and issues that transcend the methods, knowledge and concepts of any one discipline.

Seven Revolutions | Center for Strategic and International Studies

A Definition of "Transdisciplinarity"

Theoretical forms of interdisciplinarity are also associated with the concept of transdisciplinarity, a term that originally connoted an overarching synthesis or a common axiom that transcends the narrow scope of disciplinary worldviews. General systems theory, structuralism, Marxism, feminist theory, sociobiology, and phenomenology have been leading examples. More recently in Europe, two connotations have emerged: a new structure of unity informed by the worldview of complexity in science and trans-sector problem solving involving the collaboration of academics and stakeholders in society. Conceptualized as a form of transcendent interdisciplinary research, the transdisciplinary team science movement in the United States is also fostering new theoretical frameworks for understanding social, economic, political, environmental, and institutional factor in health and well-being (Rosenfield, 1992).

Klein, J. T. (2009). Creating interdisciplinary campus cultures: A model for strength and sustainability.

Don't Major

Harvard student Milo B. Beckman, who would "rather dabble than delve," wonders why students are required to have a major.

I don’t particularly want to know one thing very well. I want to have adequate working knowledge of just about everything. I want to know enough that I can engage with your passion, whatever it is, and bring my perspective to the table in an informed way. If it were optional to pursue a concentration—and it should be—I would decline and I would advise most students to do the same."

Don't Major | Opinion | The Harvard Crimson

Multi- Inter- Trans- Disciplinary

A Complete Education

Joseph E. Aoun, president of Northeastern University, writes about the debate over the purpose of college and the divide between the liberal arts and the "applied disciplines."

Indeed, the marriage of liberal arts skills with experiential learning yields advanced survival skills for the modern era: creative, critical and analytical thinking, deft communication, and the ability to deal with complexity and ambiguity, applying knowledge in unexpected situations. We can’t engage effectively with other human beings -- or institutions, or work assignments -- without these talents. Just as importantly, the experiential liberal arts imparts an appetite for ongoing study, training students to adapt their minds to new learning situations throughout their lives. This is invaluable in an economy that demands that workers make multiple career jumps and replenish their skills on a continuing basis.

Essay calls for ending the divide between liberal arts and practical education | InsideHigherEd

College of Transdisciplinarity, Woodbury U

Dr. Doug Cremer, dean of the College of Transdisciplinarity at Woodbury University, is featured in this spotlight article of PUPN Magazine.

Though the College of Transdisciplinarity at Woodbury University is newly christened, the collaboration and holistic course designs at the heart of transdisciplinarity—and the efforts that bridge various practices and multiple perspectives—is certainly not new to the campus. Dr. Doug Cremer of Woodbury University is a living embodiment of the four pillars that form the core of student experiences at the university: Transdisciplinarity, Design Thinking, Entrepreneurship, and Civic Engagement.

From the article:

Cremer acknowledges that there are certainly challenges to creating transdisciplinary courses and programs. He recognizes a university would need faculty “willing to bend and explore.” He points out, however, that faculty members at any institution must be willing to update and revise every year to stay current, so the faculty members at leading universities are already “always adapting and always changing.” He suggests being unafraid of the change, as well, because—in addition to better serving the students—faculty are “empowered to explore and push and change,” while still requiring the highest quality of analysis, writing, and collaboration. ...

Interview with Debra Humphreys: Advancing a Vision of Quality in Undergraduate Education

An Interview with Debra Humphreys, vice president for policy and public engagement at the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U).

I think the thing we most need to do is make sure that no matter what major a student is going through, they’re having the opportunity to do real-world application and applied project-based learning. One of the things we kept hearing from employers in our focus groups was, “You are graduating students who have a lot of technical expertise and have some knowledge, but they have trouble if a problem doesn’t look exactly like it did in the textbook.” In other words, we’re providing them with some problem-solving abilities, but we’re not giving them enough practice solving problems that are messy, that don’t have one single answer, that require them to bring together skills and abilities across disciplines to solve a problem—often in groups of people who may disagree with them.

The Lawlor Group | Interview with Debra Humphreys: Advancing a Vision of Quality in Undergraduate Education

The Literature: Starting Points

The literature is large, but here are a few "must read" starting points.

• Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP) is a national advocacy, campus action, and research initiative that champions the importance of a twenty-first century liberal education—for individuals and for a nation dependent on economic creativity and democratic vitality.

• General Education Maps and Markers (GEMs): Designing Meaningful Pathways to Student Achievement. AAC&U Launches Initiatives to Advance Transformative Change in General Education and Student Learning. More.

• Gaston, P. L., & Gaff, J. G. (2009). Revising General Education--and Avoiding the Potholes. Association of American Colleges and Universities.

• It Takes More than a Major: Employer Priorities for College Learning and Student Success. 2013. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities and Hart Research Associates.

• Schneider, C. G. (2010). President's Message. General Education 1.0: An Efficiency Overhaul for the Cold War Curriculum. Liberal Education, 96(4).

A Decade of Transdisciplinarity

The recent issue of Futures is dedicated to a ten year review of advances in transdisciplinarity.

There has been a proliferation of contributions about transdisciplinarity during the last decade. Today transdisciplinarity is known and referenced in the natural and social sciences, and the humanities, as well as numerous professions. Hence it is appropriate to take stock of what has been achieved in both education and research during the last 10 years. These achievements include development of conceptual and analytical frameworks, a diversification of methods and approaches in precise localities, specific cases showing the creative, reflexive and transformative capacity of transdisciplinary inquiry, and concerns about the asymmetries of power and control of participants during processes of the co-production of knowledge. However, conceptual and institutional barriers for transdisciplinary inquiry are still common whereas incentives remain rare. This is not only due to the scepticism of decision makers in academic institutions, in conventional funding agencies and in policy decision making but also to the formal education and personal motives of scientific researchers in academic institutions

Advances in transdisciplinarity 2004-2014. Edited by Roderick J. Lawrence. Futures. Volume 65, Pages 1-216 (January 2015)