Now that Interdisciplinary Studies is a Program rather than a department, we—like Global Studies, Sustainable Development, Women’s Studies, and Appalachian Studies—are eager to create a faculty from across the university. We hope to discover who is doing or has done interdisciplinary research/creative activity, teaching, or advising; we hope to find people who are interested in continuing to do interdisciplinary work; we’re interested in people who would like to do, or learn to do, interdisciplinary work. Our faculty will be made up of full-time interdisciplinarians and departmental faculty who qualify at one of the first three levels below. The fourth level involves ASU faculty who are interested in becoming Interdisciplinary Studies faculty but are not yet qualified. Being interested and qualified does not obligate anyone to serve, teach, or advise, but if you are on the Interdisciplinary Studies faculty, you can be involved to the extent of your interest and ability to participate.

Advantages of participation may include: replacement funds to be able to teach a class you’re interested in teaching even though it doesn’t quite fit in your department; a chance to work with a different and interesting group of creative, motivated students; networking beyond your department (we all get stuck a bit, and this is a chance to branch out); getting involved with others who share your interests from a different perspective—for teaching, for research, or for creative activity; a possible opportunity to do team teaching, which is a terrific way to revitalize thinking and practices; an opportunity to create or help design a new IDS concentration to meet student needs that are hard to meet in a discipline; and other possibilities.
If you are qualified for and/or interested in interdisciplinary work, please let us know by selecting a level, using the criteria below and other arguments to justify the request, and sending these plus your CV to: Director of Interdisciplinary Studies/ Living Learning Center.

There are four levels of membership in the Interdisciplinary Studies faculty:

1. Advisory Council. Faculty who show the general principles (listed below) in their work and have some level of experience under each of the other three categories (below) and higher levels in some, especially teaching and research/creative activity, or bring special qualities to the Council that we need. The duties include making decisions about curriculum and personnel in the Interdisciplinary Studies Program.
2. Advising Majors: Faculty who understand the general principles and have some qualifications under two of the three categories in that domain of interdisciplinary work that a student is pursuing. The duties of an advisor would be to help an Interdisciplinary Studies major design her/his concentration, select a concentration advisor, guide and ultimately receive her/his portfolio, and attend her/his senior seminar presentation.
3. Teaching: Faculty who understand the general principles and have qualifications under teaching OR who desire to teach and have appropriate training for the proposed course. The duty is to deliver an Interdisciplinary Studies course.
4. Interested: If a faculty member is interested in becoming more interdisciplinary, we invite you to contact us so that we can help to that end. Examples would be team teaching with or collaborating on research with an Interdisciplinary Studies faculty member. We can also suggest reading, summer institutes, and other resources and we can work with syllabi for disciplinary courses to suggest ways of adding interdisciplinary elements.

The following are guidelines to help us all decide which level of membership suits you:

A. GENERAL PRINCIPLES: If there is evidence of a willingness to pursue a theme, topic, or problem wherever it leads, i.e., into whatever disciplines or non-academic sources that might shed light; to use whatever methods seem to promise insight, wherever the methods come from; to use materials from other disciplines in such a way that they modify each other; to integrate disparate materials in a way that may challenge, go beyond, or transcend the conclusions one might reach within the investigator’s discipline, then we will call that work interdisciplinary.

The following lists are generally from strongest to less strong qualifications. We hope to be as inclusive as possible while maintaining standards for interdisciplinary work:

B. TRAINING:

1. Having an undergraduate and/or graduate degree(s) in Interdisciplinary Studies or interdisciplinary programs.
2. Having degrees in more than one discipline, e.g., an MA in Economics and a PhD in Political science OR a BA in Art and an MA and PhD in Music.
3. Having taken courses that were consciously interdisciplinary (with some scholarly or teaching outcome that shows the impact of the courses on your work).
4. Having been to interdisciplinary NEH seminars, interdisciplinary institutes, or similar post-doctoral training (with some scholarly or teaching outcome that shows the impact of this training).
5. Having done extensive out-of-field scholarly reading (with some scholarly or teaching outcome that shows the impact of the reading).
6. Having done team-teaching and given evidence of some broadening beyond one’s discipline in subsequent teaching within the discipline.

C. TEACHING:

1. Having taught undergraduate and/or graduate courses in Interdisciplinary Studies.
2. Having taught courses in a disciplinary setting that are demonstrably interdisciplinary, i.e., courses that teach conscious use of multiple perspectives and methods in the pursuit of a topic, theme, or problem AND teach students to integrate the disparate results into a deeper understanding of the topic/theme or a solution (even if partial) to a problem.
3. Having done team-teaching that was not just serial but included attempts by the teachers to integrate their views and to help students understand that integration.
4. Having taught summer institutes or other special-opportunity courses that were interdisciplinary.

D. RESEARCH AND CREATIVE ACTIVITY:

1. Having written book(s) OR done major concerts, exhibitions, or other performances that is/are manifestly interdisciplinary
2. Having written article(s) that has/have been published in refereed interdisciplinary journals or creative activity that has been in some way adjudicated by peers.
3. Having written article(s) that has/have been published in a disciplinary journal, but which, because of content and/or methods are potentially publishable in another discipline’s journal (with little revision) or in an interdisciplinary journal.
4. Having written book(s) or article(s) that challenge(s) the theory of the author’s discipline by using theory from another discipline.
5. Having produced research conclusions that challenge, go beyond, or transcend the conclusions one might reach within the investigator’s discipline.