Association for Interdisciplinary Studies Conference: Baltimore October 2017

About a week ago, I flew to Baltimore to attend the international conference on interdisciplinary studies organized by AIS (AIS Conference) - it was an incredibly busy and informative and helpful three-day-event consisting of presentations and conversations with dozens of people who think along similar lines, in term of research and pedagogy, as I do.

Last year, attending the conference was all about gathering input and information - I had just started the program at Coker, and mostly I wanted to make sure we were on the right track in terms of expectations and offerings, and it turned out we were! The Coker IS major is slightly more demanding and defined than what some other US colleges and universities offer, but it is also very small (this makes us flexible, or "nimble," as we say in academia) and therefore personalized.

So, last year I was primarily a listener, but this year I could also be a contributor - I shared information about the process of creating and developing the interdisciplinary major at Coker, the courses we include, the collaborations with other faculty and with administration, and our success graduating the first cohort of students last spring.  (I also showed off the fabulous Coker College campus, which was in my bag in form of a folder. Thanks, MarCom! "... and that's my office window!")

What sets the AIS conference apart from all other conferences I have attended (and I have been at this for a while!) is the genuine dedication to sharing experiences and advice with everyone, regardless of time-in-the-game or home institution. I learned about electronic portfolios, reflective writing prompts, creative capstone projects, and ways to reach out to colleagues across campus - and at one time, when I responded to an interdisciplinarian from NYU Gallatin who was looking for ways to integrate interdisciplinary work sooner in the undergraduate experience (I suggested getting the first-year-writing instructors on board, which apparently would be impossible in a large university setting - but at Coker, all it takes is a text to Margaret Godbey), I heard the words: "I envy you for where you teach." That was sort of nice.

So here are my three take-aways from the AIS conference:

• Create e-portfolios with my IS200 students in the spring, keep them going over their junior year, and mesh them with linkedin profiles in the IS400 course in preparation for graduation.
• Band together with fellow Coker professors across disciplines for an Interdisciplinary Interest Cluster (Craig Pepin, interdisciplinarian at Champlain College in Burlington, VT, generously shared his reading list).
• Take students camping! Actually, that's meant to read: Recreate an interdisciplinary Evergreen State College course titled "Seeing What's There" that combines looking at (and experiencing) landscapes with creative work. Check it out on my blog post from 10/15 - with photos!

Hold me to them! And feel free to collaborate on any of these - because, seriously, interdisciplinary work depends on working with each other. On pretty much everything.