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