In this chapter we describe the Decoding the Disciplines Faculty Learning Community at Mount Royal University and how Decoding has been used in new and multidisciplinary ways in the various teaching, curriculum, and research projects that are presented in detail in subsequent chapters.

At Wagner College, students are required to participate in a series of three curriculum-based learning communities (C-BLCs) as the core of the undergraduate curriculum known as the Wagner Plan for the Practical Liberal Arts. This article describes the senior learning community (LC) in psychology at Wagner College, which is an example of a…

In this article, the authors describe how an existing partnership between two communities, one in eastern Iowa and one in Mexico, was turned into a cross-disciplinary and international service learning course for students in the University of Iowa Colleges of Engineering, Pharmacy, and Liberal Arts and Sciences. The projects that students worked…

Discusses the special needs and opportunities for effective faculty and graduate-student mentoring of undergraduates within an interdisciplinary model. The model was used in a series of large, science-based, interdisciplinary, introductory courses at the University of Michigan, but any interdisciplinary faculty team can apply the lessons learned…

In one state university, an administrator, working closely with a small group of faculty, established a classroom research group which built on the successes and visibility of an existing campuswide faculty development program. The group won colleague acceptance by fostering interaction and cooperation across disciplines and following a patient…

A course at Hampshire College that joins the literature and analytical approaches of anthropology with certain texts in English, American, and European literature and modern criticism is described. The problems of the relationship of observer to observed, of author to text, and of audience to text are covered. (MLW)

A broad liberal arts curriculum coupled with basic and advanced journalism writing, editing, and theory (including law and ethics) courses is the best insurance for excellence in journalism education. A University of Kentucky plan includes establishing an exchange program with other disciplines, and requiring paired, cross-disciplinary courses.…

More important than creating an interdisciplinary major is the need for all teachers to be solidly grounded in liberal learning. Several collaborative programs blending the liberal arts and pedagogical studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, are offered by the College of Liberal Arts. (MLW)

The challenge for engineering education is to capture, from the beginning of the freshman year, the student's interest in liberal learning and then to accomplish four aims of general education. The aims include: language (reading, writing, and speaking skills), ethics, context, and adaptability. (Author/MLW)

The study of management in historical and comparative perspective can help resolve tensions between business and the liberal arts in undergraduate education. With the stimulus provided by the Professional Preparation Network, the Business Department at Skidmore College has developed a set of courses for the college's liberal studies core…

The Stockton Connection, voluntary summer seminars, focuses on bringing to middle and high school faculty continuing updates on the most recent developments in the various content areas--selected, summarized, and simplified with an eye to classroom use, and presented to students to develop higher-order thinking skills. (MLW)

A variety of assessment techniques to measure and document the outcomes of interdisciplinary study at the college level are examined, focusing on the contexts and problems of such assessments. Several programs are profiled, suggestions for assessment design are offered, and an annotated bibliography of information sources is presented. (MSE)

A course for life science and social science students at Hampshire College is a combination of mathematics and computer science. Through actively involving students in manipulations and simulations, their appreciation for the logical and aesthetic properties of mathematical tools and their capacity for the independent work is enhanced. (MLW)

A course at Hampshire College was designed to simulate the decision-making environment in which constituencies in a medium-sized city would respond to the closing and relocation of a major corporate plant. The project, constructed as a role simulation with a computer component, is described. (MLW)

A faculty development program that encourages faculty from different disciplines to engage in research on student cognition, motivation, and self-regulated learning in their own classrooms teaches theory as well as practice. The program has been well received by faculty and has also produced useful results for academic departments and the…