THE LANGUAGE OF INTERDISCIPLINARY PROGRAMS "WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT" Martha Ezzell, Ph.D. Sandie Turner, Ph.D. Carlow College.

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1 THE LANGUAGE OF INTERDISCIPLINARY PROGRAMS OR "WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT" Martha Ezzell, Ph.D. Sandie Turner, Ph.D. Carlow College (Ezzell) (Turner) We began our interest in the language of interdisciplinary programs because of the interpretation of a metaphor. The metaphor was, "You are on the path to rhetorical sophistication." It had been ed to a colleague from her dissertation advisor. The colleague was offended. We argued about the interpretation. Upon asking a rhetorician to interpret the metaphor we learned that it was high praise. We thought about the differences in perceptions and began discussing language problems in interdisciplinary programs. The discussion was quite intriguing because we describe our graduate program, Professional Leadership, as interdisciplinary. If we who, heretofore, had considered ourselves denizens of interdisciplinarity differed in our interpretations of the metaphor, what exactly might that mean in terms of miscommunication with students and other faculty, particularly our adjunct faculty who are not as immersed as we in the daily appraisal of our program. This conversation led to a number of questions about our program and others like it. For example, consider the following: What do we mean by an interdisciplinary program? How is the term defined? Are we too superficial in our consideration of interdisciplinarity? And too unconscious of what we are doing? How are our students advantaged or disadvantaged? Needless to say, these questions informed our paper. We will trace our journey of considering the meaning of interdisciplinary programs and assessment of quality of such programs especially at the graduate level by first looking at our academic stories and experience of interdisciplinary thinking in Parts I, II, and III. In Parts IV, V and VI we will give examples of how the question of the meaning of interdisciplinary studies comes up at our college in Graduate Division and Program-level meetings and in beginning questioning of students and faculty in our program. In Part VII we turn to what the Association of Integrative Studies (AIS) says regarding definitions and quality assessment of such programs at the undergraduate level. Finally, in part VIII, we will summarize the implications of what we have discovered through this journey.

2 I. Martha s Academic Story I attended college before the advent of interdisciplinary courses or programs. I had a double major, Speech & Drama and Psychology. My minors consisted of Philosophy, Sociology and French. No one labeled these combinations of majors and minors as interdisciplinary. As an undergraduate, I learned the language, the philosophy, the history and the procedures of each discipline in which I took a class. The integration of this knowledge was up to me. Although my parents gently prodded me about what I might do with this panoply of knowledge, I knew it fit together somehow. I just didn t know what I might do with it. I taught in the public schools on a temporary certificate for a number of years and found that this display of subjects allowed me to teach an unbelievable array of junior high and high school courses Speech, Sociology, French, Economics, English, Social Studies, History and direct the class play! I was interdisciplinary, but the schools weren t. In 1973, more than 10 years after my BA, I began my MS degree in the Department of Communication at the University of Pittsburgh. Speech had become Communication. Communication draws from psychology, sociology, journalism, film studies, philosophy and bits and pieces from other disciplines. It is an interdisciplinary discipline. Again learning the language was important. It was clear that the primary aim of the degree was to become more specialized in the field of communication and eventually, to move on to the doctorate. I immediately moved on to Ph.D studies in Rhetoric, but stopped out and returned a number of years later. The curriculum was designed to develop "experts" in the field. My course of study now had some identified interdisciplinary courses, The Rhetoric of Science, Reading Film, and Rhetorical Criticism. I took classes in the School of Public Health, because my dissertation was on the rhetoric of health policy. More interdisciplinarity, but not labeled as such. II. Sandie s Academic Story My discipline is Political Science. My bachelors, masters, and doctorate are all in political science. My earning of these three degrees took place during the 1960 s, the 1970 s and the 1980 s. My undergraduate political science courses at the University of Washington included comparative politics, a year of political philosophy, studies of the three branches of government, elections, and state and local government. Political behavior and survey research was on the rise in the 60 s so I was introduced to those subjects also. Entering graduate school at the University of Wisconsin in 1966 I encountered a new world of Political Science with courses focused on Executive power and leadership (we read case studies of Presidents and Barber s Presidential Character book), on urban politics, on revolution and nationbuilding in the developing world, and on political parties. Because my particular interest was urban studies I was already choosing a newer area in the discipline which had a more interdisciplinary focus. After getting my Master s I worked in the U.S. and Africa and when I returned to complete doctoral-level graduate coursework in the 70 s one of my comprehensive exam fields was Political Psychology. More and more hybrid or mixed specializations were evident in the Department at the University of Wisconsin. A Women s Studies program was established and African studies now included an African-American perspective. My minor was in interdisciplinary (so-labeled) studies I took Urban economics from an economist team- teaching

3 with a political scientist, I took Urban anthropology from an anthropologist and urban sociology from a sociologist. So I learned from them other methods of research and ways of asking questions and viewing data and documents. III.Academic stories and a consciousness of Interdisciplinary perspectives Several issues concerning interdisciplinary studies are evident in these academic histories. As reported in Conrad, Haworth and Miller (1993), the 70 s saw the birth of interdisciplinary studies and the growth of these programs has extended and increased into the present. This is clear from our experiences of formal education in the 60 s, 70 s, 80 s and more recently as faculty. We were both very aware during our education of disciplines and the differing perspectives of disciplines. This language was used and courses were identifiable as discipline related. As we contemplate our undergraduate experience, we believe we were able to construct an integrated, interdisciplinary course of study because we wanted to integrate what we were learning. We expected to be the ones to pull courses together if that happened. It was not the faculty s responsibility. Our graduate work was more interdisciplinary, but again, it was left up to the student to do a great deal of the integration. This was possible in part because the different perspectives offered were clearly identified as different disciplines. This terminology was used with fairly specific referents. IV. Interdisciplinary studies and the Graduate Division Although we have become a division in the past two years we are now on the path of becoming a school, attempting to develop a doctoral program and seeking university status. Currently we offer master s degrees in Education (2), Management (1), Nursing (2), Professional Leadership (1), and one Master s of Science in Nursing Leadership degree offered jointly from the Nursing and Professional Leadership programs. It is our vision to create an integrated, interdisciplinary Ph.D. in leadership with concentrations in the existing master s programs. Surely this is no easy task. We envision a core curriculum with a focus on the specialty of the student s choice. The concerns that arise from this plan have to do with practical problems such as team teaching in the core, the selection of courses to be taught in the interdisciplinary core, the core courses to be taught from a disciplinary perspective, financial arrangements for team taught courses, etc. Additional problems of more substance revolve around concerns of coherence of the program, integration of aspects of each discipline into the core courses, the degree to which we explicitly address interdisciplinary study, the level at which we expressly examine language and methodology of different disciplines. We expect the task to be arduous, but because we believe that the world is complex, problems enigmatic, solutions manifold, and students to be searching for programs that extend their abilities, expand their opportunities and enlarge their worlds. We think it is important work. We also think that collaboration is stimulating and an unsurpassed way of working. Thus, regardless of the difficulty, we will persist in the endeavor. V. Academic programs and Interdisciplinary studies Since the 1980 s we have been teaching in what we have labeled as "interdisciplinary" programs for adult students at two small colleges. The designers of these degrees echo the thought that the world is interdisciplinary (U.S. News and World Report, April 9,2001, p. 62) and since adult learners want learning to be relevant as well as to integrate experience and formal education it only makes sense to design degrees which draw readings and faculty from business, education, sociology, communications, political science, etc. We have been very comfortable in this world

4 since our graduate education was at a time when our chosen disciplines were embracing new specializations. Yet it is beginning to be clear to us that we are in a different place than our students by having clear attachments and identifications to disciplines. That is, we recognize when a new perspective is being offered or when perspectives might clash theoretically or in the assumptions they are based on because we were trained to recognize and know perspectives. If students have always received their education as mixtures of perspectives, how do they understand the worlds and the words of disciplines and interdisciplines? VI. Faculty and Student Views on disciplines and interdisciplinary programs This Spring we asked some of our faculty and some of our students and alumni what their understanding of discipline and interdisciplinary are. Though by no means a scientific or even large sampling, the answers were of interest. The faculty claimed disciplines such as Communications, Psychology, Political Science, Sociology, and Education. One faculty member has a professional degree, the master s in Social Work. One faculty member present at the meeting claimed a newer degree in Applied Behavioral Science. Looking at the list we discovered we were perhaps not so interdisciplinary as we had believed. However, we were all able to identify several concepts and some vocabulary that were particular to our identified discipline and that could lead to miscommunication among ourselves and between ourselves and our students. When some students and alumni were asked what they thought about the interdisciplinary nature of our program Professional Leadership they answered variously "I never thought about it", or "I liked it. It helps me solve problems.", or mentioned that some students were confused by teamtaught courses. Informal questioning of students and alumni certainly suggests that something is missing in how material is being presented and that we need to be more intentional about what our words mean. 1. Ensuring Quality As we pondered our questions we sought sources outside of our program. One helpful resource on the definition of interdisciplinary programs was the Association of Integrative Studies (AIS). AIS in a report entitled Accreditation Criteria for Interdisciplinary Studies in General Education, ( 3/30/2000) defines interdisciplinary as "involvement of more than one disciplinary perspective and explicit attention to the question of integration." AIS goes on to state that the most consistently named problem in interdisciplinary education is coherence. The report cites James Ratcliff (1977) in defining coherence. He has suggested that coherence has to do with connecting "knowledge, languages, and methodologies" across a program. Ratcliff further asserts that coherence means integration of knowledge and skills and blurring disciplinary boundaries. Thus, in AIS definition, we have coherence and integration, language and methodologies of more than one discipline and blurring the lines between disciplines. It seems to us that attention to integration and blurring the lines between disciplines is problematic. If we attend to the integration of disciplines we are not blurring the lines between disciplines. Rather, we are pointing out how different perspectives can be used together or chosen between to create better outcomes. After being somewhat dissatisfied with the definition of what seemed to be our most reliable source, we inquired into quality standards of such programs. AIS again appeared to be the authority. According to the AIS report mentioned above, "There is no authorized accrediting body for interdisciplinary education." This organization is currently centered on undergraduate core or general education courses.

5 We could find no similar associations for graduate studies. The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) requested that AIS develop appropriate criteria for accreditation for interdisciplinary education. The criteria should be considered "state-of-the-art counsel." The AIS report presents five categories: goals, curriculum, teaching and learning, and administration. The AIS task force states criteria concerning effectiveness and raises questions pertinent to quality in each category. Not every statement of effectiveness or question of quality is pertinent to graduate education. Therefore, we have summarized the relevant AIS criteria in the following manner: Interdisciplinary programs must develop a statement of goals which explicitly refer to the interdisciplinary and integrative elements of the program. These goals must be communicated to students, faculty, staff and administration. The program must facilitate students competence in comparing, contrasting and integrating perspectives from different disciplines. Programs must be monitored systematically and modified when necessary in order to meet the stated goals. There must be a plan for developing a curriculum focusing on integration of the interdisciplinary courses in terms of multiple modes of inquiry, intellectual skills and connecting learning. Integration is a product of both teaching and learning. Integration must be explained. Faculty must select strategies which model and promote interdisciplinarity, One way of doing this is to focus explicitly on integration in class, in reading and learning activities. Students must be involved in in-class activities and in assignments that require active participation in making connections and promoting integrative thinking. Learning and teaching must be evaluated in a systematic way on a regular basis. 1. So what? Some concluding thoughts After thinking through this material it is clear that we want to spend time with our faculty and students thinking through the ways in which our program and the new ones we are designing as part of graduate education at Carlow is interdisciplinary. In the Professional Leadership program we believe we have spent lots of time on the issue of coherence, the problem identified by AIS as a usual weakness of interdisciplinary programs. We believe that the use of secondary sources and the focus on an integrated curriculum, however, may have led to less emphasis than might be useful to issues of disciplines, perspectives, and explicit definition of the term interdisciplinary. We wish to become more intentional about this. Just team teaching or just having students take 2 courses of this and 2 of that does not guarantee that interdisciplinary thinking has occurred. These are issues we have been discussing at the level of the Graduate Division. We want to become more intentional about discussing these issues with our students and faculty and being aware of missed communication or misunderstanding around these issues. We want to improve our skills of teaching so we are more intentionally integrating perspectives not blurring perspectives or disciplines. References Accreditation Criteria for Interdisciplinary Studies in General Education, 3/30/2000. Conrad, C., Haworth, J., Millar, S. A Silent Success: Master s Education in the United States. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, Hartigan, R., "Smart New Degrees", U.S. News and World Report, April 9, 2001, p. 60.