Austin’s Notes on Problem-Focused Interdisciplinary Education

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.

Thoughts on Interdisciplinarity
Essay: Thoughts on Interdisciplinarity
by Gary L. Miller, Chancellor
University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
January 2015

SOFAS Response on Interdisciplinarity

Cliff Abbott, UW-Green Bay Secretary of the Faculty and Academic Staff, issued a paper in response to Chancellor Miller’s essay Thoughts on Interdisciplinarity posted here last week. Prof. Abbott prefaces his response as follows:

The chancellor’s essay (Thoughts on Interdisciplinarity January 12, 2015) offers a vision for the type of graduate that our university should be producing and the kind of university we should be in order to accomplish that. He also offers a critique of the way we currently are structured to achieve our mission. I appreciate both the vision and the critique and I am moved to offer a response.

View the full text of Prof. Abbott’s response in the paper below.

SOFAS Response on Interdisciplinarity
by Prof. Cliff Abbott
Secretary of the Faculty and Academic Staff
University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
February 2015

View the full text of Chancellor Miller’s original essay below.

Thoughts on Interdisciplinarity
Essay: Thoughts on Interdisciplinarity
by Gary L. Miller, Chancellor
University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
January 2015

Essay: ‘Thoughts on Interdisciplinary’

Since arriving at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay as Chancellor in August 2014, Gary L. Miller has said the University’s commitment to the ideals of interdisciplinarity, a founding principle, is both one of institution’s most important assets and potentially one of the strongest inertial forces to progress. In this essay, he reflects on higher learning, interdisciplinary education, UW-Green Bay and the intersection of larger societal, economic and education issues.

Thoughts on Interdisciplinarity

Essay: Thoughts on Interdisciplinarity
by Gary L. Miller, Chancellor
University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
January 2015