The Paradox Of Multidisciplinary Programs

Universities are traditionally organized into departments. This organization is more than some quaint academic custom-it evolved for solid reasons. A department provides a home for scholars having similar interests and backgrounds, somewhat like a family. It keeps the truth and determines the future directions of a field. A department is also the natural teaching unit, particularly at the undergraduate level. Indeed, to be a faculty member in a university and not a member of some department is usually to be a marginalized university citizen-lost, homeless, and likely alienated. I can attest to this fact from some personal experience. In the late 1960s, I was on the faculty of the University of Colorado as an assistant professor with an untenured position supported equally by the physics and chemistry departments there. It was a most disagreeable situation in which I received twice as many committee assignments but each department regarded me as the spy from the other department. When it came time for a tenure decision, it was not clear which department, if either, really felt I was one of theirs. On the boundaries of two disciplines, I did not have a family of my own. Despite this focus on and within disciplines, it is easy to recognize that some of the most interesting intellectual challenges we confront today occur at the boundaries of disciplines or cut across two or more disciplines. We need multidisciplinary efforts to tackle some very tough but important problems. Too often, thinking restricted along departmental lines is thinking limited to separate, distinct boxes when the solution can be found only by thinking "outside the box." One simple example will suffice to illustrate the power of interdisciplinary efforts. Here I point with pride to the recent announcement of possible life on Mars (D.S. McKay et al., Science, 273:924-30, 1996). This effort required scientists to endure harsh conditions to find the meteorite in Antarctica, and then a team of people in chemistry, biology, mineralogy, paleontology, and physics to conduct studies. And, as the debate about the meaning of the rock rages on, more and more contributions across disciplinary lines keep the dialogue moving in a healthy manner. Support structures available for such multidisciplinary efforts are just becoming realized. The National Science Foundation recognizes that many exciting advances in science cross disciplinary boundaries. Although the foundation is organized around disciplines, much as universities are, several new programs cross those lines and greatly benefit science. One example is Knowledge and Distributed Intelligence (KDI), which spans all directorates and will promote collaborations such as linking the science of learning and cognition with the development of technologies for teaching and learning. KDI includes two sets of activities: The first is Next Generation Internet, which involves developing new hardware and software to increase the capabilities of networking. NSF's efforts in this area are a part of both President Clinton's Next Generation Internet initiative and the university-based initiative of Internet 2, which will provide a high-performance network for researchers. The other KDI activity is Multidisciplinary Approaches to Knowledge and Distributed Intelligence, which will provide researchers and educators an opportunity to link diverse components of the KDI framework that can create a revolution not only in communications but also in learning as well as discovery. Such tools to store, manage, access, and visualize large amounts of data can help move the "information age" away from merely an "information overload age" to an age of knowledge and useful intelligence for even the most computer-phobic people. Another example of such multidisciplinary efforts is Life in Extreme Environments, which touches upon the origins of life and under what conditions life can be sustained. Born in the excitement following the discovery of possible life on Mars, this initiative includes biology, chemistry, physics, and astronomy-and researchers studying such diverse areas as the oceans or polar regions of our Earth as well as other planets. The multidisciplinary study of microbial life forms and the extreme environments in which they exist on Earth tells us about the very nature of life itself. Discovering how life can sustain itself in extreme conditions and while under stress can tell us how the Earth's ecosystem can adapt and adjust to the influence of people. All this has surprisingly practical applications-from discovering or engineering bacteria that can clean up hazardous spills to life forms used to advance farming and increase crop yields. A key to the success of such efforts is vision and leadership: Someone must be in charge and take ownership, even if many others are involved. To look back at my early faculty days, had it been determined from the start that I belonged to one of the departments, though the input from the other department was vital, I would not have been quite so "homeless" when the time came for tenure decisions. With NSF's multidisciplinary efforts, there is a coordinator who rests within a directorate as well as a team representing the areas involved. Not all research needs to be multidisciplinary, of course-not by any means. But the paradox is how to allow such multidisciplinary activities to flourish while preserving the strength of our departments. Only the existence of healthy disciplines and strong leadership makes possible meaningful multidisciplinary studies. We cannot let the strength of our departments diminish while we seek important cooperative models. This paradoxical situation challenges universities just as much as it challenges federal agencies that support university activities. We must be willing to try new approaches, but at the same time be mindful that such efforts will founder if they are not appropriately integrated into the strengths of our present support structures. Richard Zare is chairman of the National Science Board and Marguerite Blake Wilbur Professor of Chemistry at Stanford University.

The Paradox Of Multidisciplinary Programs

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of