Making Interdisciplinarity Concrete: Understanding Key Issues in Higher Education Interdisciplinary Building Leadership

• In Event: Transforming Educational Systems: Leadership and Management

Abstract

Among various strategies that aim to foster interdisciplinary (ID) teaching, learning and research in U.S. higher education, one of the costliest--and increasingly most popular--is the construction of ID spaces and buildings. Yet while ID buildings stand as significant investments and concrete manifestations of ID commitment, we know little about their management nor their success in achieving ID-related goals. Using interviews with leaders of and documents related to ID buildings in the U.S., this qualitative multisite case study begins to fill this gap. In probing key issues attending ID buildings, this study reveals varied roles for ID building leaders, emergent challenges to and best practices aimed at buildings’ successful deployment and future directions for research and practice.

Authors

• Kim Nelson Pryor, Southern Methodist University

• Laura J. Steinberg, Boston College