In higher education today, there are various programs aimed at improving student retention and graduation success. These programs include both academic and non-academic initiatives aimed at increasing student engagement. One such high impact practice is undergraduate research. There has been an increase in the number of undergraduate research…

Researchers typically embark on interdisciplinarity after the acquisition of disciplinary expertise. This article explores the possibility of teaching interdiciplinarity to undergraduate students who have not yet mastered or are in the process of mastering a discipline or disciplines. It focuses on junior-year students in the Whittier Scholars…

An interdisciplinary undergraduate research program with international summer fieldwork at Mount Saint Mary's University, Los Angeles trains undergraduates in research methodologies (cancer laboratory techniques, cross-cultural survey research, and policy analysis); collects fieldwork data in global settings and the United States; and compares,…

Study abroad programs offer a unique opportunity to evaluate pedagogic models. The role of studios in design and planning pedagogy has been examined. However, how the general framework of a studio supports other pedagogic models has not been widely discussed. This article assesses a series of urban planning and design studios conducted abroad to…

This is Not a Seminar (TINAS) is a multidisciplinary forum established in 2012 at Edith Cowan University (ECU) in Australia to support practice-led and practice-based Higher Degree by Research students. The Faculty of Education and Arts at ECU includes cohorts of postgraduate research students in, for example, performance, design, writing and…

Grounded as a self-study using arts-based inquiry to explore the experiences of six university faculty members participating in a cross-disciplinary faculty development program, the purpose of this paper is to (1) describe the Madison Research Fellows (MRF) program, and (2) explore the impact of the MRF program. Participating members included…

Cross-departmental schemes to broaden the inter-professional and skills-focused development of engineering students, and to emphasise engineering in its context of societal priorities, are presented. The central coordination of the schemes has streamlined implementation of the developments and promoted a culture of shared responsibility for…

In the 1960s and 1970s, activists who focused on the academy as a key site for fostering social change began by querying the assumptions of the traditional disciplines and transforming their curricula, putting into place women's and ethnic studies programs that changed both the subject and methods of scholarship. The pattern of scholars and…

The Higher Education Learning Package (HELP) program at Sacramento City--an interdisciplinary approach to basic skill development for high-risk, nontraditional students--has four goals: (1) promotion of student retention at the community college through cognitive and attitudinal development, (2) personal development of students through a…

This article analyzes the findings of a pilot project conducted in 2008-2009 as a partnership between University Studies, Portland State University's interdisciplinary general education program, and the University's Russian Flagship Language Partner Program. The project proposes a new approach of integrating non-English speakers' language skills,…

Attributes the success of Pacific University's popular Asian Languages program to an interdisciplinary collaboration effort and outside funds, allowing for various multifaceted activities that broadened program support. (CB)

Eastern Michigan University's program in language and international trade has three features that distinguish it from other attempts to address the role of world business or language education: (1) the spirit of cooperation evident in the interdisciplinary or joint degree, (2) the equal importance given to foreign language and business education,…

This paper reports on an innovative five-day training program for foreign language teaching assistants (TAs) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW). The program developed out of a perceived need to train graduate students better for the teaching profession and to develop colleague support. In the UW program, the French and Italian, German,…