URI_Research_Magazine_2010-2011_Melissa-McCarthy

multi- and interdisciplinary research

Everyone Benefits From the Merging of Art and Science

For Judith Swift art and science have never been mutually exclusive disciplines. At the University of Rhode Island (URI), where she is a professor of theatre and communication studies, as well as director of the university’s Coastal Institute, Swift has written a number of songs about science, which she has presented in musicals such as “ Oceantics ” and more recently, “ A Coastal Cabaret .” Combining disparate disciplines, such as art and science, enhances the learning process, Swift maintains, because the arts access the left side of the brain, giving scientific information an “emotional stickiness,” which can help students better retain right-brain material. This emphasis on interdisciplinary learning helped URI win a competitive $3.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to create a graduate education program which combines hands-on problem solving of real coastal issues with immersion in a multidisciplinary academic and professional environment. Called the Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT), the program has awarded two-year fellowships to 23 Ph.D. candidates over the past five years, all of whom were required to work with peers, professors and professionals in other disciplines to solve challenging coastal issues. Why is this interdisciplinary approach necessary?

Because the real world is interdisciplinary, and today’s environmental problems are too complex for any one group of scientists or professionals to solve, Swift said. Scientists usually work side-by-side with government agencies and nonprofit groups to address coastal issues, so the sooner students learn to work collaboratively, and appreciate the perspectives and lexicon of others, the better trained they will be, she said. “We bring the students together and they create a team,” said Swift, who has been overseeing the IGERT program in conjunction with Peter August, a URI professor of natural resources science and the lead investigator on the Coastal Institute IGERT Project. “This was Pete’s brainchild,” says Swift, “and it was the best thing I ever experienced at URI.” Noting that every discipline has its own jargon, which can serve as a barrier to communication, Swift said the team approach breaks down these barriers by creating an “acronym-free zone,” where people can understand each other. URI professors from fields as diverse as philosophy and resource economics have joined together to create a curriculum for the IGERT fellows. The result is a far-ranging course of study that includes everything from ethics and leadership to the collection of scientific data and environmental policy-making. URI’s strong tradition of interdisciplinary research and practice helped

The University of Rhode Island

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