Integration through Collaboration: Models for Multi- and Inter- Disciplinary Work

1. Integration through Collaboration:Models for Multi- and Inter- Disciplinary Work Donna M. Riley

2. Overview • Every institutional context is different • Three models designed within Smith’s constraints, leveraging Smith’s synergies • Parallel Courses • Independent Group Projects • Advanced multidisciplinary courses with a community of scholars approach

3. Model 1: Parallel coursesEngineering+Women’s Studies = Fine Art • Parallel Courses, shared project • Site: Mass MoCA – modern art in former Sprague capacitor factory in North Adams • Artists: subRosa –women’s labor in cultures of production vs. production of culture, North Adams vs. Juarez • Youth Culture and Gender: Ethnographies of North Adams • Mass and Energy Balances: Life Cycle Assessment of capacitors: ecological impact of globalized production

4. Model 1: Lessons Learned • Multi-disciplinary & differentiated • Met challenges related to team teaching, disciplinarity • Points of connection/respect: (electronics, art, shop, environment) • Context for sustainability, ethics • Challenges • “Two Cultures” • Disillusionment • Open-endedness • Irreproducible

5. uponic Model 2: Project-based, international, cross-institutional • Designing for Economic Empowerment in Nicaragua • Innovation by and for Nicaraguans, creation of product chains that withstand neoliberal contexts, build educational capacities • Institutions: Public/private, Nica/US, tech/comp/liberal arts • Disciplines: Engineering, Economics/Business, Latin-American Studies, Development Studies, Spanish/English • Faculty collaboration, short course in Nicaragua, parallel courses

6. Model 2: Strengths leveraged (from outside engineering) • Latin Americanist with country knowledge • Development economist taught importance of product chains, import replacement • Fluent students with international experience helped with communication • Role of disciplinary translators • Fostering women’s leadership • Special studies structure

7. Model 3: Community of Scholars • Advanced Elective in Science, Technology and Ethics • Solicited by Philosophy, input from Study of Women and Gender • Broadens engineering ethics • In context, in action: beyond individual professional • STS, post-colonial and feminist science studies, ethics, engineering, engineering education • Technology and control, science and social inequality, materialism, new visions • Prerequisites • Engineers bring professional ethics woven throughout curriculum but lack practice with critical reading, discussion, term paper, other epistemic frames • Non-engineers bring the latter but do not know engineering ethics or technical content

8. Model 3: Lessons Learned • Meets curricular needs in Ethics, possibly also the study of Women and Gender • 300 level engineering courses are intimidating • Course questions challenge foundational assumptions of engineering • requires active involvement of professionals AND citizens… a course for both • Pedagogy synergistic with course material • Shifts responsibility • Critical thinking • Praxis