Contribution to Book
Remaking the Academy: The Potential and the Challenge of Transdisciplinary Collaborative Engagement
Contemporary Philosophical Proposals for the University: Towards a Philosophy of Higher Education
(2018)
Abstract
Closing the gap between public education and the public, addressing “real” community problems in “real” time, and preparing students to meliorate intractable challenges is--and has been--a consistent challenge within higher education. Increasing tuition costs, shrinking public budgets, instantaneous around-the-clock access to information, and massive open online classes also challenge conventional academic structures. In truth, however, concerns about the role of higher education and it’s disconnect from public needs are not new. A persistent lack of focus on social literacy, local and global policy, public action, and collaboration within higher education impedes the ability to view--let alone effectively address--the complex, interconnected, systemic challenges we are facing across the globe. Indeed, the dominant structures, processes, and cultures within higher education present serious barriers to our ability to collaboratively address these public problems.
We argue higher education can better respond to these challenges by more fully committing itself to not only (1) collaboratively generating and disseminating knowledge and skills, but also by (2) connecting the production of knowledge to its use (3) fostering the capacity for these practices, and (4) operating as a boundary spanning space, working to train students as boundary-spanners (people who cross worlds, drawing together stakeholders across difference in order to address social challenges). Indeed, we believe this is the purpose of higher education. This essay explicates this philosophic approach to higher education, documents how we have instantiated it at our own institution, and highlights the lessons learned. In particular, we suggest feminist pragmatism, the movement towards public engagement, and the field of transdisciplinarity offer a vision for—and effective approach to—collaborative engagement. When taken together and applied in the academy, these fields offer a vision, path, and set of tools for remaking the academy as a place where collaborative engagement work is not only supported and promoted, but integrated into the very framework and culture of the institution itself.
Keywords
- collaborative engagement,
- feminist pragmatism,
- higher education,
- publicly engaged scholars,
- boundary spanning
Disciplines
Publication Date
Spring 2018
Editor
E. Kramer & A. Stoller
Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN
978-3-319-72128-6
Citation Information
Danielle L Lake, Amy McFarland and Jessica Jennrich. "Remaking the Academy: The Potential and the Challenge of Transdisciplinary Collaborative Engagement" LondonContemporary Philosophical Proposals for the University: Towards a Philosophy of Higher Education (2018) p. 189 - 214 Available at: http://works.bepress.com/danielle_lake/42/