Innovating at the Margins, Regenerating in the Middle: Constructing STS and IS in a Comprehensive Polytechnic

• In Event: Alternative Pedagogies at the Crux of Interdisciplinarity: Promises and Pitfalls of “Innovating” Education - I

Abstract

In 2015, the Cal Poly College of Liberal Arts launched four interdisciplinary minors in Science, Technology and Society, coupled with a cluster hire of four new faculty designed to support the new minors. Both the interdisciplinary nature of the minors, and the supportive hires, were innovative for the college – typically siloed internally and externally within the university. These minors, and the hires that accompanied them, created an opportunity for disruptions in curriculum, processes and policies. In the fall of 2018, the College launched a new Interdisciplinary Studies major that includes some tracks that mirror the minors, as well as focus explicitly on STS. This innovation created the potential for regeneration as the faculty worked to create a new, interdisciplinary department that could provide the base for interdisciplinary, science, technology and society work. The nascent interdisciplinary department finds itself at the crux of STEM education innovation as individual faculty – both the core STS faculty and others – negotiate perceptions of promise and pitfall while navigating the ongoing restructuring of interdisciplinary STS studies. This project explores the juxtaposition of the structural innovation with the narrative histories and responses of participants as a small group of faculty work to disrupt the status quo in what could be an ideal time – creating regenerative energy to envision what a comprehensive polytechnic university may look like within a bureaucratic structure prone to stasis.

Authors

• Elizabeth A Lowham, California Polytechnic State University

• Dawn Neill, Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo

• Jane L Lehr, California Polytechnic State University