Transdisciplinary collaborations for sustainability education: Institutional and intragroup challenges and opportunities

Dominance of the disciplines

Although in recent years higher education has spawned significant growth in inter- and transdisciplinary programs (Cohen, 2012; Sterling, 2001: 71; UNESCO, 2002), many challenges remain to knowledge integration within the academy and to the application of knowledge in real world settings (Hegarty, 2008: 68; UNESCO, 2002). These challenges have developed historically within the cultural, political, and economic context of modern industrialism.

The research university in the USA assumed its current form by the late 19th century, complete with its discipline-based departmental organization (Crow, 2011: 52). Michael Crow (2011), President of ASU, elaborates on the rigidity of the current structure, its tendency to segregate rather than integrate disciplinary knowledge, its tendency toward hyper-specialization, and its focus on the generation of abstract rather than applied knowledge:

Undergirding the strict disciplinary organization of knowledge is a social organization hidebound by behavioral norms of astonishing orthodoxy. Along with entrenchment in disciplinary silos has come a fixation on abstract knowledge for its own sake as well as the proliferation of increasingly specialized knowledge, which comes to produce diminishing returns on investment as its impact on the world is measured in smaller and smaller ratios. Rather than exploring new paradigms for inquiry, academic culture too often restricts its focus to existing models of academic organization. (p.52; see also Hyun, 2011: 7)

The discipline-based structure that developed in concert with the rise of the research university is also often mirrored within smaller, presumably teaching-focused institutions, where it has proven similarly difficult to dislodge. According to Crow, the attractiveness of this model has to do with a misplaced drive for prestige:

Most colleges and universities define themselves in comparison to a set of institutions that comprise the ‘gold standard’ in American higher education: the Ivies, the great land-grant universities, and the elite institutions constructed on the foundation of private fortunes. Private institutions seek Harvardization and public institutions attempt to replicate the patterns established by Berkeley and Michigan; each would do better to seek its own unique identity and situate itself in a synergistic network of collaboration. (Crow, 2010a: 36)

In addition, knowledge is not the only aspect of higher education subject to this fragmented and competitive approach. Many institutions allocate resources, at least in part, on the basis of full-time-equivalent students (FTEs) enrolled in departmental programs, and departments may not receive funding for teaching their faculty members do for nondepartmental interdisciplinary programs. Therefore, according to Elizabeth Capaldi (2009), Executive Vice President and Provost for ASU, ‘faculty who teach outside the main lines of their own discipline are also frequently not valued by a home department that needs the disciplinary courses covered and the financial credit for its activities added to its budget.’

In its efforts to increase its relevance and reach as well as differentiate itself from other research universities, ASU has undergone a significant reorganization in recent years, creating many new programs and research centers organized around broad inter- and transdisciplinary themes, including the first-ever School of Sustainability (Crow, 2010a). Within this new structure, academic units receive funding for all courses taught by their faculty members, regardless of the course prefix or program with which the course is affiliated. Using this approach removes a financial disincentive to transdisciplinary teaching and allows units such as the School of Sustainability to staff its courses. This model also increases the flexibility of the institution to create and offer new programs of study staffed by currently employed faculty members (Capaldi, 2009).

The means of preparing educators also perpetuates the dominance and division of the disciplines. PhD training serves as the forging point for discipline-based identification and loyalty as well as the model for the enforcement of disciplinary norms. Faculty members identify with and become invested in perpetuating the system to which they have gained entry through painstaking work and through often strategic navigation past disciplinary gatekeepers (see Godemann, 2006: 54, on disciplinary enculturation). These professionals typically continue to advance their careers using the same strategies for success and recognition they learned to use as PhD students. Within an academic structure that has increasingly distanced itself from political entanglements, faculty success has increasingly taken the form of avowedly apolitical advancement of highly specialized and decontextualized knowledge. Faculty members who achieve recognition typically acquiesce, or at least do not threaten, powerful interests, thereby rendering themselves nonthreatening to entrenched economic and political interests. In broad terms, such is the nature of the collusion between highly specialized disciplines and the status quo.

According to Crow (2010b), traditional academic structures also promote individualized achievement over collaborative endeavors:

While we valorize the discovery of the unknown by individual scientists, we attach less prestige to collaborative endeavors that target real-world problems, and to team participation in projects that accomplish assessment, assimilation, synthesis, implementation, and application. Scientific research conducted with application and social context in mind—outcome-driven science, or science with purpose—should be granted equal accord with fundamental research. (p.488)

Higher education in a vise

In the wake of the recent and continuing global economic crisis, colleges and universities find themselves facing budget cuts, in many cases extreme ones. In their hurried response, many institutions have focused on maintaining their traditional identity and purpose. This approach has often meant supporting outmoded curriculum and intransigent power structures highly resistant to transdisciplinary innovation and institutional differentiation.

At the same time, academic administrators working in less-well-funded public institutions are busy building their careers in an atmosphere of privation. Since there are few resources to support creative new endeavors, they often focus their attention on making the educational process efficient: ‘streamlining’ and/or standardizing academic programs and attempting to make faculty members ‘more accountable’ through intensifying program assessment efforts, raising requirements for promotion and tenure, and increasing faculty ‘productivity.’ These efforts offer administrators opportunities to demonstrate their leadership capabilities, although the reforms they lead may be misguided.

Efficiency is not the same as effectiveness, and institutions can easily become efficient at doing the wrong things. In the case of higher education, programs most vulnerable to being cut in the drive for efficiency may be those innovative and new areas of study perhaps most important to the well-being of both the institution and many of the people it serves. Richard Vengroff (2009), Dean of the College of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Kennesaw State University in Georgia, notes that interdisciplinary programs typically lack ‘centrality organizationally, to the academic mission of their respective colleges/universities’ and that ‘budget cuts are most likely to occur in [interdisciplinary program] areas, because they are often viewed as marginal and because position allocations favor traditional departments.’ Therefore, in a budget constrained atmosphere, retirements and resignations may have serious consequences for continuity in such programs (p.9; see also Orr, 2004: 103).

Large departments in established disciplines are less likely to be targeted. The sciences are likely to have a particularly strong edge in this regard because science is seen as the ultimate truth mode of our time and because scientific disciplines have garnered a large proportion of available research funding. In the process of making such cutbacks, academic leaders risk destroying crucial elements of institutional distinctiveness that could set their institutions apart, draw excellent and highly aware students, and pave the way for the institution to thrive and contribute productively to societies in need of deep change.

Crow (2007a) comments on ‘public universities and their self-imposed paralysis’ in the current atmosphere:

I would argue that our institutions are under serious attack by what I have designated ‘the virus of the agency.’ Bureaucracies, or agencies, are admirable social constructs that accomplish much, delivering goods and services … but the principle mission of universities lies beyond the ‘service’ they deliver, that is, the basic task of educating undergraduates…. Universities have begun to act like service agencies, focused only on providing efficient educational service.… The primary symptom of the virus is a fixation with efficiency and ‘make-do logic’: ‘We have only so much to work with, so let us make do. Let us be sensible and not dare to dream of that which we could attain only with great struggle.’ Such make-do logic leads to a self-imposed lack of vision and initiative and encourages preoccupations with efficiency. Most of the processes and outcomes that define greatness in academic culture are by their very nature contrary to standardization and efficiency. Scholars and researchers cannot be efficient when following a path that has not already been marked. The hierarchical relationship that allows agencies like the local division of motor vehicles to perform repetitive tasks in a standardized and relatively efficient manner is ill-suited to the famously circuitous pursuit of discovery. I can say with absolute certainty that efficiency is not the means by which one determines the origin of the universe. (pp.26–27)

These motives for resistance to inter- and transdisciplinary faculty work, together with the competition for FTEs discussed above, typically go unspoken outside of departmental circles, but they nevertheless inform the actions of faculty in important ways. Intensified by budgetary austerity, the Balkanization of the disciplines is occurring in the same historical moment when the sustainability crisis calls for transdisciplinary integration of knowledge.

Threats to career

In an atmosphere characterized by declining budgets, increasing competition for scarce academic positions, and the entrenchment of the disciplines, individual faculty members may face genuine career risks when undertaking inter- and transdisciplinary work (Everett, 2008: 244; Hyun, 2011: 5). The structures of power and work in academia can create dilemmas for new faculty members who may be faced with a choice: whether to risk one's career by engaging in transdisciplinary teaching, research, and service, or pursue traditional discipline-based recognition and advancement. According to Everett (2008),

Junior faculty are understandably committed to achieving tenure, and they can be at best uncertain whether these kinds of educational reform will be recognized by their tenured colleagues. More senior colleagues are often deeply invested in the traditions of the disciplines and find it even harder than their junior colleagues to imagine what a different form of education—one more appropriate to life in a climate-disrupted world—would look like and how they ought to evaluate those stumbling toward implementing such innovations. We lack a road map for navigating these changes, but the time when such changes were optional and might have been approached in a leisurely and studied manner is behind us by at least a decade. (p.246)

The hidden curriculum

All of the barriers to transdisciplinary work outlined above are constitutive to another powerful barrier to sustainability education, what Orr (2002) and Everett (2008: 240–241) call the ‘hidden curriculum.’ This curriculum consists of the messages students and others receive through their lived experience on campus, and much of it may be internalized uncritically. The hidden curriculum manifests in the extant priorities and practices of the institution. When the institution fails to measure up in its practices to its professed ideals, it teaches students that such disjunctures are typical of highly respected institutions and individuals. When the institution privileges highly specialized, abstract knowledge over integrated and applied knowledge, students often internalize these same values. When student success in courses depends not on critically examining complex socio-ecological problems and working toward mitigating their deleterious effects, but on passively receiving information and returning it virtually unchanged to the professor on tests, students may adhere to the cult of the expert and resign their own agency in a world that desperately needs their active and informed engagement. When service to the community is something relegated to volunteerism taking place during the ‘free time’ of students and faculty members, students may come to see community work as secondary to personal advancement and professional success. Sustainability, which can only thrive through integration and application of knowledge from diverse fields applied to problems in real world settings, faces significant and entrenched challenges in gaining ground in higher education settings where this hidden curriculum permeates the lived experience of students, faculty, and staff.

Leadership for transformation

Models of diffuse, shared leadership that promote a shared sense of commitment are preferable for long-term projects of cultural change (see Evans, 2011, for an in-depth discussion of sustainable leadership). On a similar note, Mudroch (1992) has observed that ‘strict hierarchies are unsuitable for interdisciplinary undertakings; a classless society is a more appropriate ideal.’ Through my experiences in founding a nonprofit as an undergraduate student in the 1980s and my long-term involvement in faculty governance work, including serving as Faculty Senate President at a past institution, I have observed that efficiency in accomplishing tasks is not the key to longevity of service work, neither is it the central factor in fostering cultural change. In service to fostering institutional development and change, people must be brought along and mentored as leaders, consciously and for some time, or path-breaking leaders will burnout, and initiatives will lose valuable momentum or even fizzle out altogether.

In addition to promoting the longevity of programs designed to address the challenges of our times, educators have a responsibility to look forward as we prepare current and future generations for productive and responsible social engagement. We have a responsibility to remain alert to current trends and promising ideas and initiatives so that we might offer educational experiences relevant to the pressing issues of our time. Robert K Greenleaf (1970/1991), who first developed the concept of servant leadership, says it thusly:

The failure (or refusal) of a leader to foresee may be viewed as an ethical failure; because a serious ethical compromise today (when the usual judgment on ethical inadequacy is made) is sometimes the result of a failure to make the effort at an earlier date to foresee today's events and take the right actions when there was freedom for initiative to act.… By this standard a lot of guilty people are walking around with an air of innocence that they would not have if society were able always to pin the label ‘unethical’ on the failure to foresee and the consequent failure to act constructively when there was freedom to act. (p.18)

Conclusions on institutional factors relevant to fostering transdisciplinary sustainability education

Wals et al. (2004) note that there is no appropriate cookie cutter formula for institutions to develop and engage in sustainability education, but that effective communication and inclusiveness are important to the process:

Meeting the challenge of sustainability in higher education is culturally embedded. At the same time, this challenge is closely tied to the academic history and curricular tradition of the institution concerned. Clearly, there is no panacea for the failure of the institutions to take on this challenge. Some institutions will choose to add on to existing programmes, others will opt for a more transformative approach. The decision about the most desirable reform approach is highly contextualized but appears to have more impact when resulting from an open and communicative process in which all stakeholders play their own, respected roles. (p.348)

For effective and timely action to take place, sustainability must become a core priority in institutional planning. In this regard, external commitments such as participation in the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment, and Ratings System (STARS) program of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) and/or signing on to the American College and University Presidents' Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) can serve as an effective and multifaceted driver for sustainability initiatives in both campus operations and the curriculum.

Particularly important to promoting institutional effectiveness, responsiveness, and responsibility with regard to the sustainability crisis, is the re-examination and reform of important institutional structures. According to Hyun (2011),

Academic affairs at higher education institutions must be reexamined with regard to the infrastructure supporting faculty hiring, tenure and promotion, various faculty reward systems, and overall academic culture to build or strengthen the transdisciplinary scholarship of discovery, curriculum transformation, teaching, application, implementation, and engagements as well as the culture of faculty socialization, starting at the departmental level. Institutions must have an inherent capacity for members to transgress disciplinary boundaries for continuous growth.… Personnel at the top administrative level in academic affairs must acknowledge, support, and create a ‘safe zone,’ where faculty members can engage in the transdisciplinary, borderless transformation of the curriculum. (pp.9, 12)

The widespread interest of students in sustainability studies and sustainable campus operations demonstrates that great opportunities exist for institutions seeking to differentiate themselves in their efforts to address the challenges of sustainability. Effecting sweeping changes to academic cultures, priorities, and structures remains difficult, however, in the absence of enlightened leadership—and perhaps even in its presence. Some special opportunities for differentiation along sustainability lines may exist for institutions that have built their reputations on teaching. Some of these institutions have been comparatively more willing to cross disciplinary boundaries and have recruited faculty members less committed to discipline-focused research. Higher than average teaching loads typical of some of these institutions, however, may inhibit their transformatory potential.

Explicitly situating sustainability education collaboration with regard to working across and beyond disciplines

Given that most faculty members have little background in the philosophy of education or educational theory, sustainability education projects may benefit from collaborators explicitly exploring the concepts of cross-disciplinarity, multi-disciplinarity, interdisciplinarity, and transdisciplinarity—their purposes, challenges, and potential—relative to the disciplines (see Evans, 2010b). Godemann (2008) notes that such a process can shape a group's shared expectations (p.632). Explicitly exploring the notions of agency and praxis could also prove helpful to developing a shared understanding of the group's goals (see Evans, 2012). Laying this conceptual groundwork may encourage the group to situate aspects of its work explicitly along a continuum of potential approaches to sustainability education (I argue above that sustainability education is inherently transdisciplinary, but that does not mean that every class or other educational experience that contributes to a transdisciplinary program of study must, in itself, be transdisciplinary). At least a brief amount of time invested in situating the group's work could help avoid significant misunderstandings later and also assist the group with developing its shared knowledge.

Developing a shared vision

Creating a shared vision is the defining activity for faculty members collaborating in programs of transdisciplinary sustainability education. According to Pittman (2004), ‘Organizational change practitioners highlight the power of shared vision, broad-based dialogue and collaborative learning’ (p.204). An authentically shared vision that can motivate faculty engagement with transdisciplinary projects must emerge through collaborative processes and must not be imposed by fiat.

Developing what Godemann (2006) calls ‘common ground’ is an indispensible foundation for creating a shared vision, and disciplinary hyper-specialization is among the chief inhibitors to this process.

The discipline-based competition for resources discussed above can produce tension and distrust among colleagues from different academic departments. Furthermore, specialized language and cognition structures virtually impenetrable to even educated laypeople combine with divergent epistemological frameworks to make the process of inter- and transdisciplinary communication very challenging. Godemann (2006) notes that use of specialized language by professionals is almost automatic and that specialists may believe that nonspecialists share more disciplinary domain knowledge than is in fact the case (p.54). According to Godemann (2006), ‘communication with people foreign to one's own discipline requires the anticipation of the “alien” perspective,’ and ‘the ability to adopt different perspectives forms the central cognitive category for interdisciplinary communication’ (p.54). According to Godemann (2008), effective inter- and transdisciplinary communication entails a conscious group process of constructing common ground:

The success of any negotiation is dependent on how well informed the participants are about who has what knowledge. Following this logic, communication problems result from incorrect or mistaken assumptions about the knowledge of the interlocutor. The assumption of ‘common ground’ as shared knowledge, shared assumptions, attitudes and convictions is relevant to knowledge integration. Without a meta-knowledge of the ‘common ground’ (what knowledge etc. is shared), it is impossible to achieve consensus within the group. (p.632)

Godemann (2008) elaborates on effective inter- and transdisciplinary communication as a process of developing a shared reality, a culture that informs the group's identity and decision-making:

Approaches from social psychology shed further light on the characteristics of shared knowledge and meta-knowledge. The ‘shared reality’ approach in particular provides interesting points of reference when applied to group phenomena. This approach deals with the role of shared knowledge in social interaction and describes shared reality as ‘the major contributor to group activity’ (Levine and Higgins 2001, 34). The core of the approach is that individuals’ conceptions of reality depend on confirmation by other individuals (Levine et al. 2000). Through social confirmation of the reality perceived by one person, a shared reality comes into being. Every kind of group has ‘a common frame of reference. This common frame of reference is often described as the group's culture’ (Levine and Moreland 1991, 258).… The shared reality approach comprises the following aspects (Levine, Higgins and Choi 2000): the common shared reality is the point of reference for evaluating the information provided by other members of the group. Building on Clark's [1996] approach (common ground), the common knowledge base is not only the precondition for the group to act, but also determines the ‘social facts’, i.e. what the group sees as being right and wrong. The shared reality determines the group's understanding of itself and influences decision-making. In the course of the problem-solving process, a group develops a shared reality of approaches and strategies. According to Asch (1987), the creation of a shared reality requires group members to perceive and interpret the actions of the other members, relating them with their own actions. (pp.632–633)

Engaging with values

Because the ultimate purpose of sustainability education is social transformation (Evans, 2012), it is not, by its very nature, value-neutral (Evans, 2012; Hegarty, 2008: 686; Zaman and Goschin, 2010: 8). Any faculty collaboration for sustainability education must explicitly recognize this fact. Doing so can be especially challenging for faculty members who conceive of their work as the objective pursuit of value-neutral knowledge. The willingness to engage with human values in education is such an essential capacity for sustainability educators that those who are vehemently opposed to doing so are unlikely to be effective contributors to faculty groups advancing sustainability education.

O'Sullivan (2004) notes that, while values remain contested terrain, the work of faculty and students engaged in sustainability education can coalesce around widely agreed upon values while remaining open to diverse understandings and applications:

Educational activities associated with ‘values’ remain a contested field because of concern about ‘which’ values and ‘whose’ values are being promoted. These concerns can be allayed so long as the values being examined represent core values that respect human dignity, are life affirming, and are consistent with those of major cultures around the world. However, at the same time, educators must be aware of the need to avoid proselytising, respect the right of individual learner to independently hold values, and understand that within the search for common ground there remain important values associated with cultural diversity. (p.171; for a similar argument regarding human rights as a basis for environmental activism, see Kerns, 2012)

Working with generative themes

Generative themes transect multiple realms of human existence and endeavor: economic, political, and cultural. Once engaged, they reveal many linkages among ideas and practices that converge in ideas and constructs highly important to learners in terms of potential praxis (see Freire, 1970/2000). Sustainability is perhaps the ultimate generative theme, the study of which reveals a complex of interrelated ideas and practices that manifest in the pressing social contradictions of our time.

Many entry points exist for exploring the generative themes of the sustainability crisis: the study of energy and water issues in society (and their close interrelationships), the study of food systems, exploration of the sources of social inequality and the concentration of wealth and power, the study of Western culture's attempts to dominate and control nature, and more. Faculty members collaborating for sustainability education could probe one or more of these themes through viewing and discussing documentaries, reading and discussing articles and books on these subjects, and/or having members share with the group their knowledge on one or more of these subjects. Faculty participants could then use the material they collectively explore in their own courses or invite their colleagues to guest lecture in their classes. My experience studying energy issues in society has revealed to me that, once one engages with a powerful generative theme of sustainability, the study of that theme ultimately can become a study of many diverse yet interconnected aspects of the sustainability crisis. This engagement can also reveal potential avenues for well-informed sustainability praxis (see Evans, 2012).

The process of collectively studying generative themes in a mutually supportive environment can be a highly effective approach to developing common ground and a shared reality. I have witnessed this occurring among students in my sustainability courses (Evans, 2012), among faculty members in a technology and society study group, and among faculty members collaborating in a freshman learning community thematically oriented toward sustainability. The importance of recognizing and engaging generative themes in sustainability-oriented faculty collaboration and teaching cannot be overstated.

Developing transdisciplinary identity and competence

Ongoing collective engagement by faculty members, affectively and intellectually, with generative sustainability themes is likely to alter the academic identities of those involved. In turn, as Hegarty (2008) notes, academic identities inform educational practice (p.683). Because sustainability must be considered a contested concept (Kelly, 2009; Pittman, 2004: 200–201), faculty members with rigid identities closely aligned with mastery of a body of knowledge will find it difficult to collaborate in sustainability education efforts. Prestige associated with specialized knowledge may intensify this rigidity. According to Hegarty (2008), ‘The identity formation of authorised knower, knower-with-status, is powerfully embedded in the ego-strength of the scholar’ (p.682).

Transdisciplinary faculty collaborators must be able to live and work in a space of ambiguity, recognizing that sustainability is a process, not an end (Evans, 2012: 15–18; Pittman, 2004: 200–201). Humility, a willingness to learn from others (including those outside of academe), and a personal identity that does not derive heavily from one's authority as an expert are typical characteristics and orientations of successful transdisciplinary educators. When engaging with sustainability praxis, we must be willing to admit that, while what we know is valuable, what we do not know is immense. We must recognize that all windows on knowledge and the world offer only partial views.

Team teaching, guest lecturing, and collective study/discussion among faculty collaborators can foster a culture of mutual acknowledgment, as can asking group members to comment on what other participants contribute to the development of a shared vision for sustainability education. Assumed competence among group members is also a prerequisite for creating a safe space for collective movement into transdisciplinary terrain.

Mudroch (1992) summarizes some important characteristics and orientations of educators engaged in successful interdisciplinary work; his findings derive from interviews with interdisciplinary practitioners from Swiss universities:

Hand in hand with flexibility goes an open-mindedness toward oneself as well as toward others. One must be ready to admit one's own ignorance in new areas and to accept advice or even criticism from specialists representing those new areas. One must also be prepared to accept other people as equal partners and to respect their capabilities.… Characteristics often mentioned as essential for interdisciplinary work are humility and generosity; humility is thought to be important in order to prevent the research worker from overestimating the strengths of his or her field, while generosity will help in accepting the views of a foreign discipline. Creativity is often mentioned as a necessary personal trait, since interdisciplinarity often requires radically new approaches. Personal integrity was also mentioned in the interviews: given that in interdisciplinary fields clear standards of excellence often do not exist, one must be able to resist the temptation to present unfounded results. Personal initiative is very important as well, not only because of the novel character of the work, but also for overcoming institutional inertia and securing finances.… Patience and endurance were also frequently mentioned by the respondents. Resistance from neighbouring disciplines may be present throughout the duration of an interdisciplinary project and will have to be countered in one way or another.

One's identity and orientation toward diverse ways of knowing and diverse others clearly comprise important aspects of inter- and transdisciplinary competence. Hegarty's (2008) discussion of learning versus knowing highlights the importance of humility, willingness to be vulnerable, and an open orientation to a rapidly changing world for successful engagement in transdisciplinary sustainability education:

Knowing and learning are diametrical positions; the latter an inherently vulnerable state, which is further and further extant from the ‘comfort zone’ of authoritative knower (Kofman and Senge 1993). In a world characterised by endless, rapid change, learning is as crucial a ‘catching’ position as any existing knowledge. Learning will enable us to respond, perhaps even proactively. Knowledge will be superseded almost instantly. This challenge for academics is an intense one in a knowledge economy, but the implications for EfS [education for sustainability] scholars are all the more immediate and intense. It is incumbent on us to inform and create the very response-able learning which our graduates will need if they are to envision and build sustainable futures. This project is at the heart of EfS research. (Hegarty, 2008: 682–683)

Creating a safe space for learning and creating

The group counterpart to individual humility and openness is safe space. If individual faculty members collaborating for sustainability education are to make themselves vulnerable by admitting what they do not know and by admitting that their perspectives are not singularly ‘correct,’ a safe space must exist for them to do so.

Creating such a space is challenging given the history of perceived inequities in disciplinary efficacy. According to Crow (2007b),

Not only do we perpetuate traditional disciplines, we assign inordinate significance to distinctions in a strict hierarchy: Disciplines trump other disciplines based on their quantitative capacities. The academy remains unwilling to fully embrace the multiple ways of thinking, the different disciplinary cultures, orientations, and approaches to solving problems that have arisen through hundreds if not thousands of years of intellectual evolution. (p.3)

One approach to developing a shared understanding of inequities within the academy, an understanding necessary to demystifying these traditions and thereby divesting them of their social power, is collective exploration of social inequities and their sources. I have argued elsewhere that social justice is integral to sustainability and that studying generative themes of domination and oppression is, therefore, a key aspect of effective sustainability education (Evans, 2012). Exploration of inequity and oppression in broader society can provide a platform for exploring inequities within the social microcosm of the academy. Those who participate in exploring these issues must take care, however, to avoid superficial explanations for observed phenomena, explanations that focus attention on individual faults and, thereby, tend to blame the victims of systemic oppression. They must engage with the history of social power (colonization and empire) and explore the cultural hegemony that colonizes the minds and spirits of oppressed people worldwide (Gramsci, 1971/1999: 57–58; see also Evans, 2012: 41–45).

Because fear of being negatively received can inhibit collaboration (Godemann, 2008: 634), setting ground rules for group communication and participation can ease the sense of vulnerability faculty members may feel as they embark on a process of transdisciplinary collaboration. A particularly helpful rule in this regard is ‘discuss ideas, not the person.’ In other words, rather than attacking or praising an individual person for ideas offered to the group, one should focus on an evidence-based discussion of how the idea might contribute to advancing the group's understanding of issues discussed. Ground rules might also stress the importance of listening and of limiting the use of specialized jargon in group communications. The group might, through setting appropriate ground rules, also encourage depth of inquiry and discussion and discourage individuals from dominating the conversation. According to Hyun (2011), ‘A transdisciplinary orientation demands a politics of academic civility in the context of discourse among faculty from various disciplines’ (Hyun, 2011: 8), and formulating ground rules for group communication can address this need.

The prospect of feeling out of one's depth in the classroom (intellectually and/or emotionally) is another important source of insecurity among faculty members teaching transdisciplinary courses. Professors may find that their students ask questions that they cannot answer and/or experience strong emotional reactions to the material they are studying, sometimes including a sense of despair and disempowerment (Evans, 2012: ch. 9; Pittman, 2004: 207). These negative feelings may be quite appropriate to initial stages of recognizing the intractable and overwhelming nature of the sustainability crisis, and students can often come to a sense of clear-eyed hope when they are offered opportunities to engage in ‘collaborative work toward a shared vision of sustainability’ (Pittman, 2004: 207; see also Evans, 2012: ch. 9–10).

Explicit acknowledgment of these pedagogical challenges and open discussion of how to address them should figure as part of creating a safe collaborative space among sustainability educators. As noted above, an institution-wide orientation toward supporting inter- and transdisciplinary work can also play an important role in the creation of safe space with regard to faculty members' career concerns (Hyun, 2011: 8).

Highlighting the role of generalists

As noted above, the ability to take on others’ perspectives is important to communicating effectively in layperson's terms (Godemann, 2006: 55). This capacity is also characteristic of an effective generalist. Transdisciplinary faculty collaboratives may benefit from explicitly embracing and training generalists as participants and perhaps facilitators. In order to foster long-term collaborations, colleges and universities might consider hiring deep generalists as sustainability education program coordinators. Bacon et al. (2011: 204) and Ferrer-Balas et al. (2008) cite the importance of having ‘connectors’ (people who can make connections across departments, faculty, and the campus administration as well as with community organizations) to the success of sustainability education programs. Effective generalists recognize many connections among disciplines and can often envision subjects and projects ripe for collaborative development as well as potential pathways for doing so.

Sustainability as a praxis of place

By its very nature, transdisciplinary education needs a tangible context. I have argued elsewhere for the appropriateness of place as a container/context for sustainability education (Evans, 2012). Crow (2010a, 2011) also emphasizes the importance of ASU's immediate geographical and social context for shaping the programs of the university. Sustainability will mean different things in different places. It is a process of appropriately contextualizing our lives within the human and physical geography of the land, culture, and imagination. Academic leaders and faculty members must agree that an important focus for our institutions is fostering healthy long-term inhabitation. This focus should not be seen as an intellectual tyranny, but as the basic operating principle for all people if we want to survive and thrive. According to Crow (2011),

If research universities are to create knowledge that responds to the grand challenges of our epoch—social justice, poverty alleviation, access to clean water, sustainable development—these institutions must integrate their quest to advance discovery, creativity, and innovation with an explicit mandate to assume responsibility for the societies they serve. (p.54)

Conclusions on transdisciplinary faculty collaboration for sustainability education

Intra-group challenges to transdisciplinary faculty collaboration are many, and effectively addressing these challenges requires continual, intense work that is both personally and professionally challenging. Hiring and training deep generalists to facilitate these processes can be an effective strategy in fostering transdisciplinary collaboration. Participating faculty members must devote considerable time and effort to the process, and they must be personally and professionally committed to doing so. They must also be open to negotiating unfamiliar intellectual terrain and be interested in constructing a mutually supportive environment for doing so. Institutions also must recognize the importance of sustainability education and the extensive demands its makes on the time and energy of faculty members. If this work is seen as an add-on to traditional faculty work, transdisciplinary collaborations for sustainability education are unlikely to thrive.