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).