Interdisciplinary Work, Collaboration, and Mentoring  ›  About this Theme

Guiding Principles

Interdisciplinary Work. First, universities (and also many liberal arts colleges) have seen widespread growth in research collaboration within and between institutions and with off-campus partners. Although not exclusively the province of the sciences, interdisciplinary research has become the predominant model there. Second, public and private funding for interdisciplinary research has increased. Third, there is a great deal of interest and intrinsic motivation for researchers to cross-fertilize; this type of work attracts many graduate students and early-career faculty. However, because the academy has not yet fully embraced interdisciplinary work, unchanged policies, structures and cultures are institutional disincentives, as they are still best-suited to narrower work within disciplines. This includes publication vehicles, multiple authors, peer review, and reward structures (for promotion and tenure; merit pay; incentives), to name a few.

Collaboration. Despite a popular perception of faculty as soloists, most faculty work requires collaboration whether with students, peers, administrators, or other colleagues inside and outside of the institution, in the classroom or the lab, and with the broader community through service or outreach programs. Although many faculty members value the work they do independently, they also enjoy collaborative projects within and across their disciplines. In addition, many early career faculty members report an expectation for collaboration, having come to enjoy and expect such intellectual commerce during graduate school.

Hallmarks of Successful Models

Leading institutions on these benchmarks openly consider among faculty and administrative leaders the salience and importance of interdisciplinarity to their campuses, including the variety of forms such work can take. These may include:

• cross-fertilization, when individuals make cognitive connections among disciplines;
• team-collaboration, when several individuals spanning different fields work together;
• field creation, when existing research domains are bridged to form new disciplines or sub-disciplines at their intersection; and
• problem orientation, when researchers from multiple disciplines work together to solve a 'real world' problem.

If interdisciplinary work is important on your campus, discuss and potentially remove the barriers to its practice. The common obstacles to interdisciplinary work extend beyond the disciplinary criteria for promotion and tenure to include also discipline-based budgets and environmental limitations such as space and facilities.

Likewise, discuss the importance of teaching and research collaborations on your campus and the factors that enhance or inhibit it; then determine ways to remove the barriers.

Guiding Principles

Mentoring has always been important in the academic workplace. Only in recent years, however, has the practice evolved more widely from incidental to intentional as academic leaders have come to appreciate that mentorship is too valuable to be left to chance.

Many pre-tenure faculty members feel mentoring is essential to their success, but such support is also instrumental for associate professors on their path to promotion in rank. While some institutions rely on the mentor-protégé approach (a senior faculty member formally paired with a junior faculty member), new models encourage mutual mentoring (where faculty members of all ages and career stages reap benefits), team mentoring (a small group approach), and strategic collaborations (in which faculty members build networks beyond their departments and colleges).

Hallmarks of Successful Models

COACHE partners who are high performers on the mentoring benchmark follow some or all of the following guidelines:

Ensure mentoring for assistant and associate professors.

Promote the mutual benefits for mentee and mentor alike: mentees learn the ropes, collect champions and confidants, and enjoy a greater sense of "fit" within their departments. Mentors feel a greater sense of purpose, even vitality, through these relationships.

Mentoring should meet individuals' needs, so make no "silver bullet" assumptions about what type of mentoring faculty will want (or even if they will want it at all). Instead, provide multiple paths to mentors on faculty's own terms.

Transparency is important, especially to women and faculty of color. Therefore, written, department-sensitive guidelines help both mentors and mentees.

For underrepresented faculty groups, finding a mentor with a similar background can be vital to success, yet difficult to find in some disciplines. Support mentoring networks beyond the department and division by reaching out to other institutions (e.g., through a consortium or system).

If possible, reward mentors through stipends, course releases, or other avenues of recognition (examples are available in Benchmark Best Practices: Appreciation & Recognition).

Evaluate the quality of mentoring. Both mentors and mentees should be part of the evaluative process. COACHE results can be used to frame the conversation.