THE CEA FORUM - Summer/ Fall 2015 - An Interdisciplinary Model for Connecting Writing, Psychology, and Printmaking

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by SANS

Focuses on overcoming institutional and student-related obstacles to interdisciplinary teaching in universities by embedding interdisciplinary assignments within discipline-specific courses. Presents the evolution of an art/English project refined four times, showing how it connects art, English, and other disciplines, provides an external audience for composition students, and highlights research as essential to developing arguments and artworks. Frames the approach within broader trends and collaboration evidence, including examples from major universities.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages20

Reading Time50 min

AccessFree to download

An Interdisciplinary Teaching Challenge

Institutional structures and faculty isolation

Student attitudes and resistance

Collaboration as a broader imperative

A Classroom Model: Art/English Project

Four-cycle evolution and refinement

External audience for composition

Research-driven argument and artwork creation

Context and Growth of Interdisciplinarity

Graduate program funding examples

Case-based support for cross-disciplinary work

Historical development and expanding majors/minors

THE CEA FORUM Summer/ Fall 2015 An Interdisciplinary Model for Connecting Writing, Psychology, and Printmaking Staci Stone Murray State University Although the value of interdisciplinary study is now more likely to be acknowledged, at many universities the institutional structure is hostile toward interdisciplinary teaching. Departmental boundaries, lack of support for interdisciplinarity, and institutional demands (such as faculty workload, faculty courseload, enrollment by class) keep many professors isolated in the classroom. An effective strategy for a single professor to achieve interdisciplinarity—in order to assist students with gaining skills necessary for survival, much less success, in today’s global world—is to include interdisciplinary assignments in a discipline-specific course. This article presents the evolution of an art/English project used and refined four times. The result is a manageable interdisciplinary project that shows students the connections among art, English, and other disciplines; gives composition students an external audience for their writing; and emphasizes the importance of research in the process of creating arguments and art. This interdisciplinary project model provides the opportunity for interested faculty to engage in interdisciplinary teaching without directly challenging institutional structures. Embracing interdisciplinarity seems to be on the rise because such programs and approaches are being hailed as an answer to several challenges. One such challenge is preparing THE CEA FORUM Summer/ Fall 2015 students for this global society with myriad problems. For example, in 2014, Brown University piloted a new interdisciplinary graduate program that, according to university administrators,“expands the breadth of students’ education, allows them to forge new ways of thinking about major problems, and makes them more employable in an increasingly interconnected world”(Patel). For 2015-2016, the university is providing funding specifically for graduate students pursuing interdisciplinary research (Interdisciplinary Opportunities). Using such interdisciplinary training to face new challenges has also been recommended by Adrianna J. Kezar and Jaime Lester, who state in Organizing Higher Education for Collaboration: A Guide for Campus Leaders that We do not need a research study to illuminate how having more than one faculty member design a course can enhance the quality or complexity of ideas. We see the benefits of scientists working together in labs, creating breakthroughs that are unimaginable without cross-disciplinary work. These examples have become accepted wisdom on many campuses across the country. In fact, collaboration has moved from an intuitively good idea to an imperative because of the overwhelming evidence of its benefits (4) . At some institutions, using collaboration among units has even helped weather the financial turmoil of slashed budgets. However, the emphasis on generated student credit hours by professor and number of majors, as well as a university’s departmental structure, creates obstacles to interdisciplinary teaching. THE CEA FORUM Summer/ Fall 2015 In addition to institutional structure as a barrier, students’ attitudes can be an obstacle to championing interdisciplinary initiatives. Students typically understand the seemingly selfcontained disciplines as majors, and they tend to resist seeing the connections among subjects. Even more problematic for a professor, students often avoid using the knowledge gained in one class to make sense of content presented in another class. For example, students may balkat having papers in a social science course evaluated “as though it were an English class.”Other times, students seem to be baffled by the historical context for a literary work, when that era is included in a history class required of all university students. Medical schools’recent preference for well-balanced students, who have t

FAQs

Why is interdisciplinary teaching difficult in many universities?

Departmental boundaries, limited institutional support, and workload/enrollment demands isolate professors and create friction against interdisciplinary teaching. Student attitudes can also resist seeing connections across subjects.

How does the proposed model enable one professor to achieve interdisciplinarity?

By incorporating interdisciplinary assignments within a discipline-specific course, the model connects art, English, and other disciplines without directly challenging existing institutional structures.

What outcomes does the art/English project aim to achieve?

It helps students see interdisciplinary connections, gives composition students an external audience for their writing, and emphasizes the role of research in building arguments and creating art.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by SANS