Creating Interdisciplinarity: Interdisciplinary Research and Teaching among College and University Faculty

305 Pages·2001·0.66 MB·English

by  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)
I
Creating
nterdisciplinarity
Interdisciplinary
Research and Teaching
among College and
University Faculty
Lisa R. Lattuca
∫
vanderbilt university press
Nashville
© 2001 Vanderbilt University Press
All rights reserved
First Edition 2001
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.
ISBN 0-8265-1367-0 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN 0-8265-1383-2 (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
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Chapter 1
Considering Interdisciplinarity 1
Chapter 2
Disciplining Knowledge 23
Chapter 3
Profiling Interdisciplinarity 55
Chapter 4
Constructing Interdisciplinarity 78
Chapter 5
Pursuing Interdisciplinarity: Research and Teaching Processes 119
Chapter 6
Abiding Interdisciplinarity: The Impact of Academic Contexts 168
Chapter 7
Tracing Interdisciplinarity: Scholarly Outcomes 210
Chapter 8
Realizing Interdisciplinarity 243
Appendix: Study Design and Conduct 267
Bibliography 277
Index 289

acknowledgments
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
vii
viii creating interdisciplinarity
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 my most
excellent colleagues 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, C1hapter
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
1