Building a university curriculum for the 21st century relies upon a polymathic approach to education. We hear this in calls for inter-, multi- and transdisciplinary innovation in teaching and learning. This relies on collaboration among subjects, working across disciplinary boundaries to co-create impactful learning for students. Given the major societal challenges facing us, as represented by the Sustainable Development Goals, are multi-dimensional then intellectual plurality should be prized.

But in pursuing a multi-faceted approach within formal education organized along disciplinary tracks we must not weaken disciplinary fields or identities as we seek to blend them in creative ways. Disciplinary communities are not silos, they are necessary to deepening our expertise in subject. Then, we can come together in creative collision with other in pursuit of problem-solving and solution finding. As disciplinary experts we are not locked into a space, rather we enabled to collaborate with confidence.

The messiness of real-world problems may not be represented by the clean lines of academic departments, but this belies the complexity of disciplinary connections harnessed around projects and programs. Coalition-building, collaboration and partnerships can draw subjects into novel syntheses around a shared purpose. Perhaps the energy we use now in challenging the current disciplinary mosaic would be better spent enabling friction-less combining of subjects by students and faculty fuelled by their intellectual curiosity and knowledge seeking. In this way we support personalization and plurality.

Being pro interdisciplinarity should not be heard or enacted as anti-disciplines. We should not dissolve colorful disciplines to a create a gray subject canvas. Rather like great jazz musicians, we need to be experts in our own instrument before we can jam with others in creative endeavor.

(Wendy Purcell is a disciplinary biomedical scientist, an Emeritus Professor of Biomedicine, pursuing research and education on transformational leadership and governance for sustainability and healthy organizations working effectively across disciplinary boundaries, institutional structures and organizations.)

Updates

Recent Posts