A report by the Faculty Task Force on Interdisciplinarity at UNC, released May 2007
Click here to download the report.
In the late fall of 2005, Bernadette Gray-Little, then Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and William Andrews, Senior Associate Dean of the College, convened a task force to examine and make recommendations concerning the governance of interdisciplinary studies in the College. The charge given to the task force was, in part, as follows: To propose a thoughtful and practicable framework for decision-making about emerging interdisciplinary initiatives in the College of Arts and Sciences in accordance with existing procedures and fiscal exigencies.
The goal is to present a coherent and feasible means by which faculty plans for developing new areas of interdisciplinary study can be reviewed and adjudicated. The charge continued by identifying the following key areas of concern:
1. Who should assess prospective interdisciplinary programs? In such an assessment process what should be the role of existing policies and procedures in the College for assessing interdisciplinary majors and minors? How should new proposed programs be evaluated as to their merits or their anticipated accomplishments? How should such evaluations or assessments factor into administrative decision-making, particularly with regard to possible funding?
2. What are the criteria that should govern funding decisions for prospective interdisciplinary programs? Who should make these decisions?
3. Who should recommend funding for a prospective interdisciplinary degree program, and on what basis? What should be the conditions under which funding might offered to a prospective program?
4. What policies should govern faculty participation in or appointments to prospective interdisciplinary programs? Should teaching, administrative, or internal research and study assignments of faculty in existing units be affected by their participation in a new or continuing interdisciplinary program?
5. How should new interdisciplinary majors and minors intersect with the course requirements for majors and minors in existing units?
The task force was comprised of the following members:
- Carol Arnosti, Marine Sciences
- Adrienne Davis, Law
- David Garcia, Music
- Lawrence Grossberg, Communication Studies, Director, University Program in Cultural Studies and Chair of the Task Force
- Joy Kasson. American Studies
- John McGowan, English and Director, Institute for the Arts and Humanities
- James Peacock, Anthropology
- John Pickles, Geography and International Studies
- Jay Smith, History and Associate Dean (Undergraduate Curriculum)
The membership appointed to the task force makes clear that the Deans most immediate concerns were directed at the humanities and qualitative social sciences, where such interdisciplinary programs have been rapidly proliferating in recent years. For this reason, this report locates its proposal for a pilot center in the humanities and interpretive social sciences. However, we envision this center as only one in a network of interlocking and overlapping interdisciplinary centers that would define a second, horizontal university structure in CAS and even Academic Affairs. Moreover, the administrative and policy proposals we make in our recommendations below are pertinent to both the CAS and to Academic Affairs.
Additionally, we believe that a full response to the needs of interdisciplinary scholarship will have to address the interconnected demands of both research and teaching. However, we have concluded from our investigations that the primary barriers to interdisciplinarity are curricular and involve the distribution of instructional resources. We have therefore focused on these issues (without, we hope, ignoring other research centered questions).






