Many people who devote their lives to higher education, myself included, bristle at those who contrast college to “the real world.” The implication is that our campuses are walled-off from reality. The old trope of a professor in an “ivory tower” comes to mind. The truth is that faculty, staff, and students do not escape the effects  of inequality, climate change, and disease (to name a few). But there is one way in which college is different from the “real world.” Outside the academy, life does not conform to academic disciplines. Take the three issues I just mentioned (inequality, climate change, and disease). No single discipline is up to the challenge that these present.

This is where interdisciplinary research comes in. When faced with complex problems, scholars employ the questions, methods, and knowledge of different disciplines. In the second part of the twentieth century, scholars grappled with complex issues and new interdisciplinary fields like Women and Gender Studies, African-American Studies, Environmental Studies,and International Studies emerged.