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.
![](https://blog.uwgb.edu/chancellor/files/2015/06/2015.06-Notes-on-Problem-Focused-Interdiscplinarity-Education-Austin_Page_01-116x150.jpg)
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.
![](https://blog.uwgb.edu/chancellor/files/2015/02/2015.02.05-Re-thoughts-on-interdsciplinarity_Page_1-116x150.jpg)
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.
![Thoughts on Interdisciplinarity](https://blog.uwgb.edu/chancellor/files/2015/01/2015.01.12-essay-thoughts-on-interdisciplinarity_Page_01-116x150.jpg)
Essay: Thoughts on Interdisciplinarity
by Gary L. Miller, Chancellor
University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
January 2015