"A Rescue Plan" for SLACs from IHE??

[Caracal]

Similarly, there's been a huge push back against STEM faculty offering disciplinary writing courses- we're told that since we are not suited to properly teach writing.

That's really annoying, and wrong. Writing isn't some exclusive preserve of English departments and it shouldn't be treated that way. I'm assuming you wouldn't get far as an academic in science if you didn't learn how to write.

[Parasaurolophus]

Similarly, there's been a huge push back against STEM faculty offering disciplinary writing courses- we're told that since we are not suited to properly teach writing.

That's really annoying, and wrong. Writing isn't some exclusive preserve of English departments and it shouldn't be treated that way. I'm assuming you wouldn't get far as an academic in science if you didn't learn how to write.

I assume the concern is being primarily driven by the worry that if STEM departments start offering their own in-house writing courses, then that will reduce demand in the English department and lead to cuts.

I'm in the humanities (but barely), and I confess that I wish we had our own in-house writing course. It would save a ton of time and energy, and a more general writing course run out of the English department isn't really up to the task of meeting our particular disciplinary needs. Honestly, I don't entirely understand why we don't do this, at least for the minor/major pathways.

I don't know how well this all ports to similar service-y courses, though. How do mathematics departments usually feel about other departments teaching in-house mathematics courses, for example?

I can tell you that philosophers adamantly don't believe that non-philosophers are suited to teaching ethics courses--and, I confess, I'm among them. That said, doing it properly for some disciplines (e.g. the medical sciences) would require an ethicist specializing in the ethics of the field in question, so I can see that it may not be in the budget except at wealthy research institutions. (Then again, there's no dearth of specialized ethicists!) On the other hand, none of us worries about linguists or computer scientists teaching logic in-house. We often seek out collaborative teaching there.

I like Caracal's ideas, but I am not sure how they would work without faculty getting paid to double teach.  Just as an example, I have taught science fiction, but I could not really teach the science----and the science of science fiction is not really science.  There are certainly all sorts of approaches (science fact vs. fiction / futurist philosophy, etc.) but we'd need a scientist in the classroom with me.  Teaching Beowulf alongside a history faculty would be awesome!  Could my uni really afford that? 

At the institutions I've worked at, I've found the opposite. Humanities faculty are perfectly willing to collaborate on courses with other humanities faculty, but aren't really willing to work out truly cross-disciplinary collaborations, even when STEM faculty try to initiate them.

Philosophers don't play well with other humanists, but we do play well with scientists and social scientists, especially those of us who are philosophers of science (many of them are bona fide credentialled scientists who left for philosophy). I think it would be pretty easy (maybe even trivially easy) to get them on board for these collaborations. The main stumbling block is that philosophy departments are chronically underfunded and always on the chopping block (or, bizarrely, jumbled together with Religious Studies), and so yours may not actually have the philosophers of science you would need. Or, perhaps in Wahoo's case, the philosophers of literature they'd need.

[eigen]

The practical problem to a lot of these issues is one that was already brought up: how do you credit teaching loads.

For team-taught courses, there are two common possibilities: either both of the instructors each get full credit for teaching the class, or each only gets half credit for teaching the class.

The problem with the first approach is that (in my sad experience) there isn't enough funding to make this viable. In the latter approach, we're all too snowed under to double teach, since coordinating a class is rarely half the teaching load of teaching our own.

This also goes along with the "how". Ideally, a team-taught class would have both instructors (or all in the case of larger groups) there every class so students could see the interaction.

But that *really* increases either work or decreases available faculty for individual classes.

The other way to do it is the course flip- have 2 courses, each of which approaches the material in a different order and the instructors flip back and forth between the two. More practical, but not as good from the student learning perspective.

The other way to get around rules is to do two courses, one with each department listing, with half the cap and just teach them at the same time- but administrators might catch on to this if it was more common.

One of the courses I really want to teach is a science fiction class with someone in our english department, looking at the interplay between advances in science and tech and fictional writing about them. Also be interesting to do one on popular science writing with someone in our journalism department. I've got some great colleagues now that will hopefully make these a reality if we ever are not snowed under to the point that we could regularly teach this type of class.

[marshwiggle]

I don't know how well this all ports to similar service-y courses, though. How do mathematics departments usually feel about other departments teaching in-house mathematics courses, for example?

In my experience, not terribly supportive.

As eigen said,

The practical problem to a lot of these issues is one that was already brought up: how do you credit teaching loads.

However, a big problem is what I call the struggle between "beauty" (or "purity") and "utility".
I studied a lot of physics, math, and computer science. I enjoyed them all, each in their own right. Over the years I've realized that I was an outlier. For instance, even though physics involves a lot of math, many physicists aren't really interested in math that isn't related to physics. On the other hand, many mathematicians have little interest in the practical results of physics, and actively dislike parts of physics where the math is messy and (especially) approximate.

The issue is that people within a discipline want to show the elegance of the topic for its own sake, while other people are primarily interested in its utility, particularly as it relates to their topic of choice. In order for people to collaborate on an interdisciplinary course, each one needs to be able to

• appreciate the beauty in the other discipline for its own sake
• approach their own discipline from the point of its utility to the other one

That's very rare, in my experience.

[Hibush]

The practical problem to a lot of these issues is one that was already brought up: how do you credit teaching loads.

For team-taught courses, there are two common possibilities: either both of the instructors each get full credit for teaching the class, or each only gets half credit for teaching the class.

The problem with the first approach is that (in my sad experience) there isn't enough funding to make this viable. In the latter approach, we're all too snowed under to double teach, since coordinating a class is rarely half the teaching load of teaching our own.

This also goes along with the "how". Ideally, a team-taught class would have both instructors (or all in the case of larger groups) there every class so students could see the interaction.

But that *really* increases either work or decreases available faculty for individual classes.

The other way to do it is the course flip- have 2 courses, each of which approaches the material in a different order and the instructors flip back and forth between the two. More practical, but not as good from the student learning perspective.

The other way to get around rules is to do two courses, one with each department listing, with half the cap and just teach them at the same time- but administrators might catch on to this if it was more common.

One of the courses I really want to teach is a science fiction class with someone in our english department, looking at the interplay between advances in science and tech and fictional writing about them. Also be interesting to do one on popular science writing with someone in our journalism department. I've got some great colleagues now that will hopefully make these a reality if we ever are not snowed under to the point that we could regularly teach this type of class.

This subtle detail really has to be worked out well in order to have success in the cross disciplinary teaching that can be so effective at reaching the mutually valued educational goals. It's rare to find anyone opposed to the concept, but the bureaucratic barriers seem to be numerous and difficult to change. An administrator who can address those effectively would do a lot of good for their institution.

[Caracal]

The practical problem to a lot of these issues is one that was already brought up: how do you credit teaching loads.

For team-taught courses, there are two common possibilities: either both of the instructors each get full credit for teaching the class, or each only gets half credit for teaching the class.

The problem with the first approach is that (in my sad experience) there isn't enough funding to make this viable. In the latter approach, we're all too snowed under to double teach, since coordinating a class is rarely half the teaching load of teaching our own.

This also goes along with the "how". Ideally, a team-taught class would have both instructors (or all in the case of larger groups) there every class so students could see the interaction.

But that *really* increases either work or decreases available faculty for individual classes.

The other way to do it is the course flip- have 2 courses, each of which approaches the material in a different order and the instructors flip back and forth between the two. More practical, but not as good from the student learning perspective.

The other way to get around rules is to do two courses, one with each department listing, with half the cap and just teach them at the same time- but administrators might catch on to this if it was more common.

One of the courses I really want to teach is a science fiction class with someone in our english department, looking at the interplay between advances in science and tech and fictional writing about them. Also be interesting to do one on popular science writing with someone in our journalism department. I've got some great colleagues now that will hopefully make these a reality if we ever are not snowed under to the point that we could regularly teach this type of class.

This subtle detail really has to be worked out well in order to have success in the cross disciplinary teaching that can be so effective at reaching the mutually valued educational goals. It's rare to find anyone opposed to the concept, but the bureaucratic barriers seem to be numerous and difficult to change. An administrator who can address those effectively would do a lot of good for their institution.

It seems doable, which isn't saying it would be easy, but if you had course sequences, you could imagine something where either the course counted for 1/2 but was over two semesters, or where you had multiple courses over a number of semesters, but only some of them were team taught. If this is part of some larger overhaul of the curriculum, you are freeing up faculty from teaching other courses. If it was just a pilot program it doesn't seem like it would be that devastating to the budget. But of course, that would be assuming a reasonable run system where administrators actually can estimate their budgets with some degree of confidence from semester to semester. I teach at a large state university in a rapidly growing area, yet we often get emails in the Spring about sudden cuts to the adjunct budget for next semester. I imagine if you were the chancellor in that situation anything that might result in an even slightly hirer need for instructors would look like a pretty bad idea.