15 Years of KI: Founder's Message

The 21st century is asking questions that universities everywhere are struggling to answer. That’s hardly surprising. The world has problems. The universities have departments. And the problems don’t know about departments. It was in recognition of this troubling disconnect that the University of Waterloo’s Knowledge Integration program was created and why, since its beginning in 2008, it has proven and will continue to prove a transformative experience for hundreds of students. 

Now, on the occasion of KI’s 15th anniversary, it’s worth celebrating the program’s unique place in Canada’s university landscape. But it’s also appropriate to look back at why and how it came into being. As the program’s founder, my message to the KI community and those considering joining it is that we created Knowledge Integration because we saw an urgent need for a university program built around ways of knowing and doing that transcend disciplines and address the existential crises facing humanity today. 

The seeds that would grow into KI were planted in my own life many decades ago when I studied engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Unlike many engineering schools, including Canadian ones, MIT’s program offered a far more rounded learning experience in which a full quarter of an engineering student’s programs were in the humanities and social sciences. The degree was all the more valuable — and useful — for this interdisciplinary approach. That lesson stuck with me. 

After coming to Waterloo as a professor in systems design engineering in 1976, I better understood the need for diverse ways of knowing. By definition, engineers use their knowledge of mathematics and science to solve people’s problems. Once engineers understand how a system works, they can find the problems — and solve them. MIT had taught me, however, that it takes more than an expertise in one or two disciplines to solve many of the most urgent problems facing us. While there is value in finding novel solutions by bridging two or more areas of knowledge, the university system seldom provided this. 

I have always believed a university is where you go to look at the whole universe of knowledge. Yet, as universities proliferated, I noticed that they became more and more specialized. In the last 20 years, there’s been a growing awareness that universities have become overspecialized, and that specializing too soon can become a huge problem in our rapidly changing world. If universities are to survive, and if they want to successfully prepare the next generation of complex problem-solvers, they need to get back to a more holistic approach to education, focusing on different ways of knowing the world. 

My response to this reality was to help devise and deliver Knowledge Integration, a four-year program that aspires to break out of the limits of traditional academia. With its wide variety of courses and instructional techniques, KI teaches students to think critically and creatively. It teaches them how to acquire knowledge and ways of knowing that transcend disciplines. In addition, it gives them the skills to do something with that knowledge to make the world a better place. 

A KI degree is a golden ticket to a successful future and to making a difference in the world. It’s a fantastic foundation whether you’re intending to enter law, engineering, medicine, education, planning or, really, any other profession. The KI model doesn’t exist anywhere else. In my opinion, Knowledge Integration is the future of education. It is the framework that you should be looking at now — and 25 years in the future. If you accept that your world is a complex and rapidly changing place, your education has to equip you with the skills and attitudes you need to stay ahead of the wave. KI has been paving the way for the past 15 years and will continue doing so in the future.

Dr. Ed Jernigan, Founder

Listen to Knowledge Integration's Story with Ed Jernigan