Education can be stifling, no question about it. One of the reasons is that education — and American education in particular, because of the standardization. . . does not emphasize diversity or individuality; it’s not about awakening the student, it’s about compliance; and it has a very linear view of life, which is simply not the case with life at all. ~Ken Robinson[1]

Our systems of higher education are built around a centuries-old legacy that has touched the lives of countless administrators, faculty, staff, and students.  When this involves traditions such as covering a campus statue with red crepe paper before a big football game, or newly-engaged couples ringing the landmark tower’s bell seven times, it’s charming – serving a valuable purpose in building and maintaining community.  Other legacies, however, are less beneficial.  We unquestioningly accept “the way it’s always been done,” refusing to look beyond longstanding institutional practices that ought to be open to examination.  As Sir Ken Robinson so ably pointed out, the systems still in place across all of American education developed during the industrial age,[2] designed to yield a consistent product – educated citizens.  This has been true for so long, we don’t even recognize the obvious connection to manufacturing.  Our colleges and universities are designed to ensure uniformity – each person who earns a certain degree will have received similar instruction, met the same requirements, and had a comparable educational experience.  This means that a B.S. in Chemistry, for example, will be essentially the same no matter which institution grants the degree, notwithstanding the relative prestige or status of the institution.  We even apply metrics that quantify and evaluate our work, much like the quality control practices in factories.  However, no matter how consistent and reliable our educational methods may be at imparting a pre-determined set of knowledge, skills, and competencies, it does not mean that students who earn a degree are truly educated.  Certainly, students progress through our systems, abiding by the stale rules that change with glacial slowness, but many never become fundamentally transformed by the education they received.  They are merely recipients of a standardized credential.

When someone who earns a living in higher education makes such a claim, it raises the specter of controversy, since those who contribute to such systems appear to be complicit in their perpetuation. Nevertheless, each person who works within the educational system can and should strive for improvement where opportunity exists or circumstances demand change.  Every faculty member or academic administrator should support continuous improvement of our institutions and the expansion of our disciplines.  We should resist the tendency to take the easier path that leads inexorably to the comfortable trap of legacies, rules, and traditions, guarding against our natural inclination to allow our longstanding institutional habits to limit the advancement and improvement of higher education.  After all, progress occurs every day, even when our colleagues turn a blind eye to changes occurring beyond the campus gates.  

Furthermore students come to us expecting our best, believing that we are leaders in our disciplinary fields.  Do our credentials uphold the trust students place in us?  Do we actively maintain our disciplinary engagement?  Or has our professional involvement been stalled by legacy or tradition?  We should never lose sight of the fact that students quite literally mortgage their futures for the privilege of studying with us, incurring staggering debt to avail themselves of the opportunities that they presume we will provide.  According to the College Board, the average cost of tuition, fees, room and board at a private college for the 2017-2018 academic year was $38,830, which translates to $151,320 for a four-year bachelor’s degree.  An in-state student at a four-year public university could expect to pay $20,770 per year for tuition, fees, room and board, or $83,080 for a bachelor’s degree.[3]  Unless we ourselves are the parents of college-age children, we seldom stop to count these costs, yet knowing the financial burden that our students place upon themselves (or that their parents incur through “Parent Plus” federal student loans) should give us pause.  By way of comparison, $150,000 could buy a comfortable single family home in many areas of the country; and $83,000 is more than the cost of a brand-new Mercedes-AMG C63 S Coupe, or a Chevy Corvette Grand Sport, or a Jaguar F-Type R Dynamic.[4]  Some faculty and administrators may bluster at this comparison, saying that we cannot measure the value of college education in mere dollars and cents.  Nevertheless, we DO put a price tag on it, which means that we must also consider whether we are giving students their money’s worth.

We in higher education must help one another perceive change and opportunity through a benefits-oriented lens. In other words, we must ask ourselves: does our choice to remain steeped in legacy, tradition, and manufacturing-era operational models draw us closer to the goal of preparing students to lead successful, sustainable lives after graduation?  Or does it drive us further away?  Academic maturity, leadership (and make no mistake: all educators are leaders), and scholarship each allow us to develop the ability to judge the constructiveness of our decisions, allowing us to recognize that high-quality scholarship has nothing in common with doing things the way they’ve “always been done.”  We should never allow our intellectual curiosity to be sated, nor our eagerness for professional growth and achievement to wane.  We cannot permit our departments, colleges, or schools to remain stagnant when the world all around us continues to evolve.  If we do, our houses of learning become mere museums where we are but docents, introducing students to the treasured antiquities of our disciplines.  Instead, we should each remain on the cutting edge of disciplinary achievement so that our students will be exposed to the most current information it is within our power to provide, empowering them to go forth from our institutions prepared for the ever-changing rigors and challenges of the professional world. 

Higher education can no longer adhere to a model of mass production, using the obsolete machinery that has been in service for many decades.  We should recognize that each student deserves an individualized educational experience that will be personally transformative, not only delivering the tools to succeed now, but instilling a passion for lifelong learning, an insatiably curious mind, and a spirit of innovation that transcends the basic skills and competencies typical of standardized degree progressions.  When we can truly say that we do this, then we can legitimately claim to be educators.
 
AXIOM:  Higher education must provide students with a transformative education that empowers them to transcend the skills and competencies of a given degree program.


[1] Brown, Karen. (May 24, 2013).  An Interview With Sir Ken Robinson. Etsy Journal. https://blog.etsy.com/en/sir-ken-robinson-on-creativity-and-finding-your-element/

[2] Robinson, K. (2010). Changing Education Paradigms.  RSA Animate-TED.  https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_changing_education_paradigms

[3] College Data, a service of 1st Financial Bank.  “What’s the Price Tag for a College Education?” https://www.collegedata.com/cs/content/content_payarticle_tmpl.jhtml?articleId=10064

[4] Road and Track (June 27, 2017). The 15 Best Cars Under $100,000.  http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/g4277/the-13-best-cars-under-100000-dollars/?slide=2

“Silos build the wall in people’s minds and tie the knots in their hearts.” ~ Pearl Zhu[1]

It’s only natural for human beings to prefer the company of others like themselves.  A study conducted by Northwestern University professor Lauren A. Rivera revealed that hiring process in the labor market rest not only on finding a qualified candidate for a position but someone who was culturally similar to the hiring manager.[2]  Rivera’s findings support earlier research by scholars such as Kanter (1977) or Lazarsfeld and Merton (1954), who also found that cultural similarities were the basis of attraction and social stratification.[3]  In higher education, “culture” is often defined by our academic disciplines, so it’s no surprise that scholars choose to associate with like-minded colleagues.  We understand one another’s research and practice, and most importantly, we share a common passion for our disciplines.  Close association between scholars in the same field of inquiry creates an environment in which teaching and learning in that field can grow and develop, striving to expand knowledge within the discipline and convey new discoveries to students.  But this attractive familiarity can also become a barrier separating us from practitioners in other fields, resulting in disciplinary silos with their own value systems, insider language, and norms for scholarly inquiry and accomplishment.  The more deeply steeped we become disciplinarily, the more difficult it can be to forge productive relationships with colleagues whose research, teaching methods, professional jargon, and habits of mind seem foreign to us.  Rather than serving to enhance scholarly productivity and protect academic rigor, disciplinary silos slowly become little more than border walls, keeping insiders in and outsiders out, reinforced by longstanding habit.

Make no mistake, the advancement of disciplinary knowledge is crucial to the mission of every institution of higher learning, as is the training of new practitioners.  Nevertheless, the workplace outside of academia emphasizes teamwork and collaboration over monodisciplinary focus.  Employers want to hire candidates who can communicate clearly and effectively, work well on teams, and solve problems creatively, not just those with particular disciplinary expertise.[4]  Corporate professionals work on interdisciplinary teams, and some workplaces such as IDEO abandon the idea of professional disciplines altogether.[5]  Outside of academia, no discipline exists in isolation, even though our institutional structures, histories, and traditions can make it seem so.  The world’s problems are complex, requiring a systems thinking approach that examines the linkages and interactions between a problem’s interrelated components and parts.  No single discipline can solve “wicked problems” like world hunger, poverty, crime, disease, or political unrest alone.  Instead, we need to bring our finely-honed disciplinary expertise to bear on collaborative projects where each participant can make a meaningful contribution to something greater than a single discipline alone could achieve. 

Furthermore, interdisciplinarity strengthens both teaching and learning.  Students learn more effectively when we help them to connect their disciplinary skills and knowledge to other contexts or applications.  Because our disciplines don’t exist in a vacuum, it is incumbent upon us to show students how their learning will intersect with their other studies and their professional lives.  This applies to all courses from general education requirements to senior seminars and graduate study.  After all, why do we require all students to complete liberal arts requirements?  Because they have value outside of the classroom, imparting a specific set of transferable competencies[6] that prepare students to communicate clearly, analyze and evaluate intelligently, think critically, and work collaboratively – the very qualities employers are seeking in our graduates.  All disciplines have both intrinsic and instrumental value, but it is up to us as faculty and administrators to convey both of these identities to our students and help them build the connections they need in order to fully mobilize all of their learning after graduation, not just their specialized disciplinary achievement.

So how do we break out of our silos?  As with many other things in life, it is up to us to take the first step for ourselves.  Find a partner in another field who is also interested in working on an interdisciplinary research project or co-teaching a course that incorporates both of your fields.  Study successful instances of interdisciplinarity already occurring at your institution or elsewhere and investigate how you could apply similar strategies.  Or conduct a little background research, like reading Surveying the Landscape: Arts Integration at Research Universities (2015),[7] which outlines a number of approaches to interdisciplinary research and teaching, along with examples of institutions where this has been especially successful. 

As important as it is to move beyond our silos, it’s still not easy.  Colleges and universities often voice their support for interdisciplinarity, or establish centers and institutes that bring varied disciplines together, but longstanding systems and practices may stand in the way of their best intentions.  When retention, promotion, or tenure rests only on individual disciplinary achievement, it’s difficult to invest significant professional energy into research or teaching that might impede career advancement. 

Certainly, we must continue to hone our skills within our disciplinary divisions, so admirably equipped for that purpose, and persist in our hard work to deepen disciplinary knowledge.  But we must also carry our valuable expertise beyond the self-imposed walls of our silos, strengthening the linkages and intersections between our fields of expertise in order to truly achieve the ideal of a university - establishing a whole and cohesive body of knowledge far greater than the sum of its formerly siloed parts.  In this way, the human body might serve as an effective metaphor, with each physical system representing a distinct entity that functions in concert with all others in order to sustain life.  All are essential, and none can do the job of the others, yet they work together so that we can do all of the amazing things humans can do, from composing an aria to competing in a triathlon. 

Un-siloing our disciplines allows these productive interactions to occur unhindered by the structures and systems that have long kept us separated by custom, policy, or tradition.  Institutions that establish greater flexibility in matters of retention, promotion, and tenure to allow for interdisciplinary work realize positive growth.  Offering incentives to faculty who choose to pursue interdisciplinary research or teaching, or providing support systems for those who choose to venture in new directions beyond their prior comfort zone are also productive strategies.  There are as many paths to success as there are faculty and administrators willing to boldly travel beyond their disciplinary borders, leaving the doors of the silo open in the ardent hope that others will follow.  When we unlock our silos, we emulate most of the world outside our doors, where interdisciplinarity is the norm and disciplinary exclusivity the exception.  This can only be of benefit to our students and our professions, not diluting our disciplinary rigor as some may fear, but infusing our disciplines with fresh ideas and new vitality, propelling us into a brighter future.
 
AXIOM:  Disciplinary structures and systems continue to serve a valuable purpose in higher education but they should also allow for interdisciplinary research and teaching beyond longstanding borders.

[1] Zhu, Pearl. (2016). IT Innovation: Reinvent IT for the Digital Age.  BookBaby.

[2] Rivera, L. (2012). Hiring as Cultural Matching: The Case of Elite Professional Service Firms.  American Sociological Review. 77(6) 999-1022.  http://www.asanet.org/sites/default/files/savvy/journals/ASR/Dec12ASRFeature.pdf

[3] Kanter, Rosabeth. 1977. Men and Women of the Corporation. New York: Basic Books; and Lazarsfeld, Paul and Robert Merton. 1954. “Friendship as a Social Process: A Substantive and Methodological Analysis.” Pp. 18–66 in Freedom and Control in Modern Society, edited by M. Berger, T. Abel, and C. Page. New York: Van Nostrand

[4] Ryan, L. (March 2, 2016). 12 Qualities Employers Look for When Hiring.  Forbes.  https://www.forbes.com/sites/lizryan/2016/03/02/12-qualities-employers-look-for-when-theyre-hiring/#77eaf2352c24

[5] Brown, T. (2009).  Change by Design.  Harper Collins.

[6] Ireland, C. (June 6, 2013). Mapping the Future.  Harvard Gazette.  https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2013/06/mapping-the-future/

[7] Mackh, B. (2015).  Surveying the Landscape: Arts Integration at Research Universities.  University of Michigan Press.  Full text download available at:  https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015095766708;view=1up;seq=2

I've been working on a series of short writings about teaching and leadership in higher education that I've loosely titled "Axioms."  This project is ongoing, with Axiom 28-The Challenge Coin completed today.  You'll find the document below, and others on the Leadership page here on my site. If you have ideas for new Axioms, I'd love to hear them!  Please post them in the comments below.