interdisciplinary studies as a vital & unappreciated approach towards sustainability: some tips...
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Interdisciplinary Studies as a Vital & Unappreciated Approach Towards Sustainability: Some
Tips Along the Way
• FDU
• Globalization: Nature, Causes and Consequences
• September 9, 2013
Your guest lecturer
• Longest Serving Sustainability Change-Agent in NJ
• Senior Fellow, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Institute for Sustainable Enterprise
• NJ Department of Environmental Protection Alumnus
• Business, Academia, Environmental Group, Government Experience
• Perpetual Student • Columnist
Sustainability• Must look at Economy/ Environment/
Society Together—not Separately
• Problems are urgent, but don’t necessarily need to see them that way to get started
• No one has all the answers
• Business is not necessarily the enemy
• We must help poor countries develop their economies in more benign ways than we did it
• Call for creativity in addressing the above
Personal Sign Posts Along the Way
• Interdisciplinary studies—without the name
• Environmental economics/Ecological economics/Behavioral economics
• Sustainability/Sustainable Business
• Philosophy of science/Critical thinking
• Edge-walker/Positive Deviant/Social Entrepreneur
• Interdisciplinary studies—with the name
Interdisciplinary Thinking
• Where does the following so-old-it’s-new-again metaphor say?
Some tenets of Interdisciplinary studies (from Repko)
• “…needed to answer complex questions, solve complex problems…that are increasingly beyond the ability of any single discipline…”
• Descriptions of relations between disciplinary fields: Bridging, Blending, Integrating, Transcending, Reconciling conflicting disciplinary insights
• Connecting dots…regardless of the disciplinary box in which they reside
Further tenets of Interdisciplinary studies (Repko)• …into a whole that is larger than the sum
of its parts
• Recognizing & confronting differences
• Looks for common ground although may criticize individual fields
• Defying of disciplinary limits
• Breadth, comprehensiveness, realism
• Is not a side-by-side placing of insights from different fields
Apply to a Real Life Case: Managing a Farmers Market
• A very popular sustainability application
• Problem: Have 3 farmers selling produce—Do we accept a fourth if the market “cannot currently support it?”
• Maximize interest of the existing farmers (economic viability), or the Community (the social element of sustainability)?
• Is there a creative solution to this?
• Any relevance to today’s readings to point out?
• Any recent or current sports management issues which could benefit from an interdisciplinary approach?
How to play this role?
• What’s the first academic thing to go after graduation?
• Ability to do all-nighters & still function the next day, eat greasy subs, courage, curiosity, open-mindedness, a sense of nuance, an I-can-change-the-world focus & energy
• Don’t let this happen as you move into careers, life gets busy & crazy; adversity to risk and there’s-nothing-new-under-the-sun attitudes become tempting
Other Tips
• Not everyone has to be a change-agent like this. Still need many to help make numerous small changes
• Figure out your strengths & weaknesses—and work on a select number of the latter
• No one knows everything/Usually no one side is completely right—or wrong
• Are opportunities that no one may tell you
• Be creative
Feel free to accept the challenge of pursuing
sustainability
• In your role as student
• In whatever profession you join, create, or change to
• As well as in your future roles as parent/ citizen/volunteer
Conclusions about Interdisciplinary Studies
• Can be very useful—even if it’s not in your job title
• A very nice thing to have in your background—gives you a professional edge even if the marketplace doesn’t always understand it
• Can be a special and, occasionally, even a beautiful thing