A certain large intelligence : a history of the idea of interdisciplinarity (and some of its experiments) / Hall Renfro Howard, Jr.

Format:

Book

Manuscript

Thesis/Dissertation

Author/Creator:

Howard, Hall Renfro, Jr., author.

Contributor:

Zemsky, Robert, 1940- degree supervisor.

Armacost, Mary-Linda, degree committee member.

Maher, Ryan, degree committee member.

University of Pennsylvania. Higher Education Management, degree granting institution.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Penn dissertations--Education.

Education--Penn dissertations.

Penn dissertations--Higher education management.

Higher education management--Penn dissertations.

Local Subjects:

Penn dissertations--Education.

Education--Penn dissertations.

Penn dissertations--Higher education management.

Higher education management--Penn dissertations.

Physical Description:

ix, 257 leaves ; 29 cm

Production:

[Philadelphia, Pennsylvania] : University of Pennsylvania, 2015.

Summary:

This study is a contribution to the history of an idea: interdisciplinarity. The historical episode examined here is the general education movement of the early 20th century, which was an attempt to resolve the tensions between the values of the old college and the new university. Universities remembered, even as they were growing more fragmented, that they were still educating young people. The resulting movement was an earnest effort to repair something broken. The device employed most heavily in these repairs, yet which somehow remains under history's radar, was interdisciplinarity, and idea that had unusual strength, even as it cut against the grain of those institutions it sought to repair.

The stories of interdisciplinary general education at three very different institutions, Columbia University, the University of Chicago, and Georgetown University, inform this study. A fresh look through their archives, with special attention to their interdisciplinary efforts, contributes to what has already been explored in previous work. One aim of this study is to correct for the relatively underappreciated role of curricular integration in early general education. Interdisciplinarity a big idea today, but it was a big idea then as well. Contemporary anxieties are echoes of anxieties past. As countercultural elements in a disciplinary environment, general education and interdisciplinarity continue to frustrate those who want to make them work. Those frustrations form a second aim of this project, to shed light on the current challenge. What gave rise to this idea? What curricular shape did interdisciplinary general education actually take?

There were tensions to address in the process, interdisciplinary tensions that endure today: between liberal education and professional education; between prescription and choice; between the sacred and the secular; between highbrow and lowbrow; and between aristocratic elitism and democratic populism. Ultimately interdisciplinarity attempted to stand between the values of the college and the values of the university. It had something to say about each of these tensions, and at its best it formed a credible bridge between them.

Notes:

Ed. D. University of Pennsylvania 2015.

Department: Higher Education Management.

Supervisor: Robert Zemsky.

Includes bibliographical references.

OCLC:

951553620