Taking an Interdisciplinary Approach

Dean Margrit von Braun’s “Interdisciplinary Approach” helps put COGS ahead of the curve

It’s the subject of all her favorite conferences and books.

It keeps her up at night thinking how to do it, how to sell it, and what to call it.

It’s got her soaring one moment (“Can I show you my fantasy Web site?”) and grounded the next (“That’s why it’s probably just a fantasy. You start defining it and people get bogged down.”).

To get her point across, she pushes a piece of paper across her desk. On it are written, “ID at ID.”

The second “ID” is the postal abbreviation for Idaho. The first is von Braun-speak for “interdisciplinary,” an approach to graduate studies education that she began pioneering at Idaho in 1993 when she cofounded the Environmental Science Program.

Von Braun reasons that at one time "DIY” (Do It Yourself) and “AI” (Artificial Intelligence) weren’t well-known, either. Some day, she says, “ID” will be instantly recognizable by everyone in academia. You can say you heard it here first.

Challenge and opportunity
Von Braun believes “ID” is her college’s number one challenge as well as its greatest opportunity.

“The national conferences I attend describe it as an absolute necessity,” she says. “They also call it an unprecedented opportunity. I have no doubt that it’s one of the most significant structural and historical challenges we’ll ever face.”

Wikipedia defines interdisciplinary studies as “an academic program or process seeking to synthesize broad perspectives, knowledge, skills, interconnections, and epistemology in an educational setting. Interdisciplinary programs may be founded in order to facilitate the study of subjects which have some coherence, but which cannot be adequately understood from a single disciplinary perspective.”

“You have to keep in mind how atomized universities tend to be,” says von Braun. “They’re used to thinking and doing things along traditional disciplinary lines. You want to be an architect? You major in architecture. You want to work for the Forest Service? You study forestry.

“But things aren’t so clear-cut anymore,” she says.
“The scientific, social, economic, environmental, legal and political problems we’re facing are embedded in a complex system of interlinking causes and effects. They can’t be solved without applying the knowledge and perspective of multiple disciplines.”

Three driving factors
Three factors are driving the “ID” movement.

First and foremost is funding. Under the direction of Elias Zerhouni, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has led the way by advocating that grant proposals be framed more as interdisciplinary collaborative projects rather than single researcher, single discipline projects. Other important agencies, such as the National Science Foundation, have followed suit. “The funding agencies are saying we don’t want to give money to just one researcher or one department,” says von Braun. “We want you to show institutional collaboration before we give you money. We expect you to be working together and maybe even collaborating with other universities.”

It turns out that “ID” fits “ID” to a tee. “Another driver,” says von Braun, “is the fact that the people and departments here have always worked well together. Collaboration is something we naturally excel at. We tend not to have the kind of turf wars you might find at bigger, metropolitan universities. ‘ID’ is perfect for us because, in terms of faculty and resources, it allows us to generate the kind of critical mass we need to compete with larger institutions.”

The third, and most important, driver is student benefit. “ID” helps graduates land great jobs because it prepares them to solve the complex real-world problems of the 21st century. It can also engender a more relevant, less fragmented, and more stimulating learning experience.

The best of both worlds
Von Braun is not about to scuttle existing disciplines. She knows that without specialists, interdisciplinarians would have no information and no leading experts with whom to consult. Conversely, when interdisciplinary collaboration and research results in new solutions, valuable information is fed back to the various disciplines involved. The relationship between approaches is mutually symbiotic and complementary.

Idaho’s College of Graduate Studies currently supports five interdisciplinary programs that exist nowhere else. They are environmental science, bioinformatics, neuroscience, Waters of the West, and bioregional planning. A sixth department, sustainability, offers no degree but works closely with departments throughout the university to address environmental issues.

Von Braun’s “ID” approach also manifests itself in a wide range of exciting new initiatives, research centers and institutes. One example is a joint program with the University of Costa Rica.

“Students in agriculture, environmental science and natural science took part in a joint Ph.D. with the University of Costa Rica,” says von Braun. “They even did joint dissertation chapters together, which is pretty unique in terms of working in teams. This was a funded grant that allowed students to look at tropical ecology in Costa Rica and arid western ecosystems in Idaho and the Rocky Mountain West. It attracted a lot of interest not only because it was well-funded, but because it allowed students here to do something they couldn’t have dreamed of doing otherwise.”

“ID at ID” is rewarded with Doctoral Fellowships as well as prizes for Outstanding Teaching Assistant and Outstanding Research Assistant. The prizes are presented at the university’s annual Research Expo.

Willing to take risks
Examining difficult issues from many perspectives apparently comes naturally to von Braun.

“Interdisciplinary was not a term that many people were using in a positive way,” says Maxine Dakins, Interim Director of the Environmental Science Program at the University of Idaho.

Referring to von Braun’s first foray into “ID” (when she cofounded the Environmental Science Program in 1993), Dakins says, “Margrit took a huge career risk to step outside her disciplinary box to get faculty working together on environmental problems.”

When it comes to publicizing COGS, von Braun wants to keep stressing that Idaho is a nationally competitive research university. “It’s not just the best in Idaho,” she says. “We have a lot of rankings and ratings that indicate our excellence in a wide range of fields. We need to keep letting people know about that.”

She also likes to emphasize the school’s commitment to students. “The personal, hands-on experience you get here is a big part of what makes us special. This is not a university where you’re going to get lost.”

But the subject that continues to energize her the most is “ID”—an approach that, thanks to her foresight and passion, has put Idaho at the forefront of a movement that may eventually revolutionize higher education in general, and graduate studies in particular.