UW-Green Bay Associate Professor Andrew Austin, contributed to the discussion of interdisciplinarity by submitting his Notes on Problem-Focused Interdisciplinary Education. The discussion began with Chancellor Miller’s essay Thoughts on Interdisciplinarity posted here this past January and continued with a paper issued in response by UW-Green Bay Secretary of the Faculty and Staff Cliff Abbott a week later.
Austin introduces his notes as follows:
Drawing on the substantial body of literature on interdisciplinarity, this essay clarifies problem-focused interdisciplinary practice and asserts its usefulness, indeed, its necessity in addressing the problems of a complex world. In the sections that follow, I review the literature on interdisciplinary education and research, as well as the history of and reasons for interdisciplinary studies; highlight the advantages of budgetary structures and requirements; provide examples of interdisciplinary programming; and examine the concept of the discipline and the limitations of disciplinary approaches to complex problems. I conclude with a discussion of UW-Green Bay’s distinct institutional character and its continuing relevance to our present and future.
View the full text of Prof. Austin’s response in the paper below.
Notes on Problem-Focused Interdisciplinary Education
by Prof. Andrew Austin
Chair of Democracy and Justice Studies
University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
June 2015
View the full text of Prof. Abbott’s response in the paper below.
Response on Interdisciplinarity
by Prof. Cliff Abbott
Secretary of the Faculty and Staff
University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
February 2015
View the full text of Chancellor Miller’s original essay below.
Essay: Thoughts on Interdisciplinarity
by Gary L. Miller, Chancellor
University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
January 2015