Bridging the Silos: Curriculum Development As a Tool for Crossing Disciplines in the Arts, Sciences and Humanities

Investigators in the 21^st century are finding that there are tools, information and points of view from other disciplines than their own that can answer the problem they are studying. However, higher education becomes more restrictive as a student moves from general education courses into graduate school, where a single department awards degree based on a usually narrow set of course requirements and a thesis or dissertation. Little is known about the kinds of cross-disciplinary courses that are currently being offered, the mechanisms that employed to offer them or their pedagogical effectiveness. A first necessary step is to research current cross-disciplinary offerings in higher education on an international basis in order to understand the modes of development of such curricula. We present an analysis of a compendium of arts-science-humanities cross-disciplinary courses created through several Calls for Contributions (2009 to 2013). A web site was created and submissions were posted at http://www.utdallas.edu/atec/cdash/. Permissions and updates were received for over 100 courses, along with additional material. The data (from courses) was analyzed as to the nature of the cross-disciplines, level of offering (graduate vs. undergraduate), geographical location, level of collaboration (number of instructors) and department(s) offering the course. A comprehensive re-visioning of curricular structure to encourage collaborative and cooperative teaching of integrative courses and programs is needed. Suggested actions include specific ideas to enhance networking and visibility, asset mapping, sharing of syllabi and course materials, and a research effort to demonstrate the effectiveness of cross-disciplinary art-science-humanities courses. This preliminary study points the way towards further efforts in curricular design and research that will be required for cross-disciplinary courses to be integrated into college curriculum.

This project was initiated for a SEAD white paper, developed in collaboration with the Leonardo Education and Art Forum (LEAF), and supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No.1142510.