When William James was reflecting on his work with contemporaries to create the new academic field we now call psychology, he noted how opportunities to create new fields, disciplines, and academic programs were commonly found in the penumbra; the “white space” between existing disciplines. In the example of psychology, philosophy and biology are commonly cited as root disciplines that, when combined or considered jointly, created the new discipline. There are numerous examples of how disciplines combined, changed, or otherwise varied to create what is recognized as a new one; quantitative chemistry out of the disciplines of mathematics and chemistry, neuroscience out of biology and psychology, and human ecology out of sociology, geography, economics and other disciplines. All of these new disciplines have created heretofore unimaginable possibilities such as the conduct of chemistry experiments without the usual laboratory equipment, the ability to study the reciprocal relationships between brain and behavior, and a better understanding of the effects of culture, habitat, and other community factors on human health.
As a research university, it is part of our mission to create new disciplines, areas and methods of inquiry, and academic programs that create the new types of scholars needed to produce the new knowledge bases of tomorrow. We are embarking on this work in the college by creating one of the first doctor of philosophy programs in the country in Prevention Science, which is another fast growing amalgamation of prior disciplines.
We need to do more of this work because we are better prepared to do so than our peers. In other words, as one of the leading colleges of education in the world, strengthened by 16 new tenure track faculty hires in the past two years alone, we have the intellectual depth, and now, breadth, to create or further develop new disciplines.
New disciplines take years, if not decades to create. New courses and academic programs, on the other hand, can be created in a couple of years or less, and they may serve as the building blocks of new disciplines. Our faculty have already begun this work by exploring the nexus of engineering, computer science and education, education and journalism, and special education and tribal culture to name but a few.
This year of academic planning represents an opportunity to hasten this experimental work, where differing academic traditions and disciplines are studied jointly to see if more interesting and important work can be conducted in the penumbra between them. I welcome all faculty and staff to participate in this exciting challenge to think beyond the comfort of our existing disciplines and to explore the new territory that lies just beyond their borders.