As someone who wholeheartedly embraces teaching that requires cooperation between students and faculty on interdisciplinary projects, I thought I would share the following announcement:
As a Jesuit institution, Fairfield has a particular commitment to teaching and learning. In the tradition of Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, Fairfield faculty take seriously cura personalis, the teaching and care of the whole person. In this spirit, our activities integrate intellect and affect in the service of others.
We hope you can join us for exploration and discussion in this, our tenth annual summer conference, Crossing the Disciplinary Divide: Innovative Pedagogy & Course Redesign X, on June 2 through 4, 2010.
The problems of the real world, as with its opportunities, come not in neat, disciplinary packages but as highly unstructured chal¬lenges to human thinking. Whether solving the global economic crisis, global warming, sustainable development, or helping students sort out work, relationships and their life projects—people need wildly varied and complementary learning experiences.
Building on last year’s conference focus on the national integra¬tive learning movement1, we seek work that specifically aims at interdisciplinary thinking, cross-disciplinary collaborations and inte-grated solutions to complex problems. Particularly welcome is work that builds on the AAC&U’s 15 meta-rubrics2 for knowledge, abili¬ties and values deemed essential to all institutional missions.
Bottom line: we want the most powerful practices to help stu¬dents make intentional connections across varied disciplines and in personal, professional and civic life as they:
• Connect skills and knowledge from multiple sources and experiences
• Put together ideas from different courses
• Make connections across core disciplines
• Apply theory to practice in new situations or settings
• Include diverse and even contradictory points of view
• Understand issues and positions contextually
We especially encourage bridge-building proposals that cross not only subjects or units but help faculty and/or professional staff learn about content and skills outside their specialties. As keynoter Therese Huston shows in her book Teaching What You Don’t Know, when we share “the fervor of the uninformed” students learn how to become expert learners themselves and how to think outside the box in any situation.
As with last year, while all submissions are welcome, we espe¬cially encourage team and cross-disciplinary presentations.
To learn more contact:
Cynthia B. Delventhal, Program Assistant
Center for Academic Excellence
1073 North Benson Road (Library 106)
Fairfield, CT 06824 USA
(203) 254-4000, ext. 2876
cae@mail.fairfield.edu
http://www.fairfield.edu/
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