IV. Remove Barriers to Interdisciplinary Education Research universities must remove barriers to and create mechanisms for much more interdisciplinary undergraduate education. In the earlier decades of the century, research was characteristically confined within traditional boundaries of disciplines that had themselves been defined only a few generations earlier. The anthropologist and the historian rarely ventured into each other’s realms; nor did the chemist and the physicist. But in the years since World War II the continuing appearance of new departments and new programs that merge fields has proven repeatedly the permeability of the lines between disciplines. Individual researchers find that pushing the limits of their field takes them into new territories and that the work they are doing may have much more in common with that of colleagues across the campus than with members of their own departments. The principal barrier to interdisciplinary research and study has been the pattern of university organization that creates vested interests in traditionally defined departments. Administratively, all educational activity needs to "belong" somewhere in order to be accounted for and supported; that which has no home cannot exist. Courses must be offered under some kind of sponsorship; students are asked to place themselves in one discipline or another. The limitations on this kind of structure are recognized in every university by defining new departments, approving new programs, and creating new centers in which to house courses, often experimental, that do not fit into the disciplines. But those centers repeatedly must call on the departments to teach the courses, knowing that the departments may balk at doing so since the interdisciplinary programs deplete staffing for their own departmental courses. Students who find that existing majors do not suit their interests often encounter discouraging barriers; advisors will likely first try to fit those interests into one of the existing patterns. Breaking the Disciplinary Molds As research is increasingly interdisciplinary, undergraduate education should also be cast in interdisciplinary formats. Departmental confines and reward structures have discouraged young faculty interested in interdisciplinary teaching from engaging in it. But because all work will require mental flexibility, students need to view their studies through many lenses. Many students come to the university with some introduction to interdisciplinary learning from high school and from use of computers. Once in college, they should find it possible to create individual majors or minors without undue difficulty. Understanding the close relationship between research and classroom learning, universities must seriously focus on ways to create interdisciplinarity in undergraduate learning. Recommendations: Lower division courses should introduce students to interdisciplinary study. Academic majors must reflect students’ needs rather than departmental interests or convenience. Customizing interdisciplinary majors should be not only possible but readily achievable.

SIGNS OF CHANGE Name World Courses University University of Maryland "World Courses" at the University of Maryland College Park are team-taught lecture courses for core distribution credit; many integrate science with humanities or social science perspectives. Topics include "To Stem the Flow: the Nile, Technology, Politics, and the Environment," taught by faculty from Civil Engineering, Microbiology, and Government and Politics, and "The Creative Drive: Creativity in Music, Architecture, and Science," taught by Mathematics, Music, and Architecture faculty, focusing on the creative process as seen in jazz, modern buildings, and scientific chaos theory.