Re-Designing Education

You grew up in an American military family and lived all over the world before entering college. What was the impact?

Yes, my father was a Marine and then became a communications engineer for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). From Athens to Taiwan, we lived in each location a couple of years, at most. My four siblings and I became very family oriented, I learned to adapt quickly, and I gained a broad perspective on just about everything.

When you started at MIT, what drew you to engineering?

I actually planned to pursue chemistry but had already completed much of the introductory work through my high school AP courses. With time in my schedule to  explore other subjects, I became interested in Electrical Engineering (a renowned program at MIT) and soon shifted my major. As I continued into my master’s and PhD, I focused more on biomedical engineering, especially as it applied to optometry and more specifically, how it might be used in the diagnosis and treatment of cataracts and glaucoma.

What drew you to University of Waterloo?

A job posted in the area of Systems Design Engineering looked interesting, and the university also had a School of Optometry, which was a continuing interest for me. Upon arrival, I found myself in a fascinating department with an extraordinary mentor, Professor George Soulis. I had met him during my job interview, and was impressed by his warmth, insight, creativity, and breadth. He and his colleagues were building an education for engineers that would balance systems thinking as a way of knowing with design practice, as a way of doing. At that time, Canadian engineers often excelled at analysis but were less strong when it came to application. By integrating the practicality of design into the analysis of engineering, this new department could more effectively find solutions to complex problems that transcend disciplines. The results over time were impressive. The small department of Systems Design Engineering produced many of the most accomplished students and then alumni at Waterloo.

I understand that the Shad program was the next step in your journey toward Knowledge Integration.

Yes, and I again can thank George for his mentorship. In 1981 George was one of the first faculty members recruited to the Shad Valley summer program, a program for outstanding high school students that continues to attract substantial numbers of remarkable students to University of Waterloo. George laid the foundation for the program and put it on sustainable footing. I joined him as a faculty member in 1984 and then served for thirty years as Program Director for the Waterloo SHAD program.

Waterloo Unlimited gave you more experience with building transdisciplinary curricula. Tell us about that.

Four characteristics of Shad seem crucial to its success. It requires a transdisciplinary mindset, a high level of intrinsic motivation, continual self-enrichment based on life-long learning skills, and a strong sense of community.

In 2003, the University was celebrating its Millennium Scholars--students who were exemplars of innovation and commitment to their communities. With Waterloo Unlimited, I wanted to construct a one-week, on-campus transdisciplinary introduction for high school students. To create connections across disciplines, I proposed "vision" as our first theme.

Sitting around a table at the Grad House with about a dozen professors from across campus, everyone started offering ideas, from a poet who noted that "we can see the universe in a grain of sand" to an artist who noted the difference between what we see and what we know, to a kinesiologist who was interested in vision and motor control in walking. And that was just the beginning. The discussion became so engaging that another professor who was seated nearby began listening in, and eventually joined us, too! After that session, several faculty members went off in groups, all excited, because they wanted to collaborate with peers that they hadn't met before. It then became clear to me that we wouldn't only be enriching high school kids, we were going to be enriching the university faculty as well.

We structured the program to include several "whole-group sessions" which offered faculty lectures on our theme and a couple of two-and-a half-hour small group sessions that offered workshops chosen by the students from a list of around half a dozen options. Several "skills sessions" offered over the week were designed to help students make the transition to higher education. It is easy to underestimate the importance of the learning skills students must develop to flourish in the university, such as ways to stay engaged in a long lecture, ways to write a killer one-pager, how to ask a professor for a reference--even how to behave like a grown-up! For a while, we set up tables around a room so that various professors could provide mini workshops on such skills; if the student completed all of the stations, they got a button saying, "I have Unlimited Charm." Combined with meals together, these strategies quickly built a sense of community, and to this day I have a thousand "best friends forever" from Shad and Unlimited kids. We created connections to high schools from Newfoundland to British Columbia and had enormous impact on the students and professors.

It seems that the combination of the Systems perspective and the Shad experience led to Waterloo Unlimited and then to Knowledge Integration.

Once we realized that we really had something pretty magical, we asked ourselves, "What's next?" Clearly, through Shad and Unlimited we were inspiring professors and transforming students' lives. One kid even wanted to start his own Unlimited program at his high school, so he could share his experience with more students. Conversely, we kept hearing back from program alumni who felt trapped by the narrow curricula they encountered when they entered their universities. Subjects outside of their majors were often dismissed as insignificant, a waste of time. Essentially, they were being told that they didn't have time to explore art or music or theatre or anything else that was outside of their major.

So, I thought, why not design an undergraduate degree that would be as enriching over four years as the four-day Unlimited or four-week Shad programs? Working with collaborators such as artist Linda Carson and poet Rae Crossman, I began developing Knowledge Integration.

What did KI retain from the earlier programs and how does it differ?

We retained the essentials I noted earlier. KI requires a transdisciplinary mindset, a high level of intrinsic motivation, continual self-enrichment, and a strong sense of community. More specifically, we realized students needed to really be literate, articulate, and numerate. A combination of collaborative, critical and creative thinking skills could help them attain and build these capabilities. And we accepted a basic reality. Few students really know what they should major in when they enter the university, and this is especially true of the most exemplary students who have multiple interests and strengths.

It seems to me that narrow and rigid curricula also underestimate the rapid intellectual and emotional growth students experience during their university years.

Yes. Such curricula are often top-down constructions, based on the latest research in various disciplines. They focus on the needs of the disciplines rather than the needs of the students!

With KI, we wanted an undergraduate program with a lot of flexibility combined with the supporting coursework students would need regardless of their ultimate direction. Rather than simply combining coursework in the arts with coursework in the sciences (what I call the "surf and turf" approach, like putting lobster and beef on a plate), we needed courses that provided students with transdisciplinary ways of knowing and being and doing. Let's explore this a bit.

• In the first year, The Art and Science of Learning provides a broad framework for ways of knowing and Collaboration, Design Thinking and Problem Solving provides a broad framework for ways of doing. Working in collaborative teams, students solve practical design problems right off the bat. This has two advantages. It connects their coursework to real-world problem-solving and requires them to work collaboratively. Because the KI curriculum is so broad, it tends to attract students who want to learn all sorts of things, such as the engineer who is interested in music or the artist who is interested in computers. The result is a much richer student cohort. Through collaboration, students learn from the beginning to value and use the unique capabilities that their peers offer.

• Students get a solid introduction to epistemology the second year. What do we know and how do we know it? How can we form more powerful questions and pursue more substantial answers?

• The Museum Course dominates the third year. Using a two-week trip to a European city at the end of the second year as a launchpad, students return the next fall to tackle a two-semester collaboration that results in a public exhibition. Each group of five or six students picks an area of interest and then figures out a way to present an expert's knowledge to a general audience. Combining thinking, being, and doing, the teams research, design, and build a collection of exhibitions measuring around 250 square feet each.

• This sets the stage for the Senior Research Project, which is a yearlong individual thesis. This provides in-depth work, resulting in "T-shaped" students who are becoming experts in an area of personal interest.

We might think of the curriculum as a pizza that is divided into four pieces. The first quarter is the KI core dealing with the ways of knowing, being, and doing that transcend disciplines. The second quarter adds depth through courses in public speaking, basic science and math requirements, and so forth. This half of the pizza is proscribed to give students both the depth and breadth they need to pursue further study in any discipline. The second half of the pizza is devoted to electives, chosen by the student. We encourage broad exploration initially, followed by work in greater depth once the student finds their compelling question.

My interviews with current and former students reveal the care with which they select these courses--because, in effect, they are constructing half of their curriculum!

Yes - this is where their intrinsic motivation is especially important. They are largely responsible for the education they receive.

A team of professors and administrators at Florida State University (my home institution) is developing an ambitious interdisciplinary program. Would you be willing to share with them your experiences in developing KI?

Yes, I am willing to talk with anyone. KI is having great impact on students every single day, and the graduates of KI are having great impact in all sorts of disciplines, from medicine to design to education. It is a powerful model, and one that could help universities truly transform education.

Finally, what advice might you give to students entering or considering KI?

Be prepared to take charge of your own education. Whether you already have an idea of your main interest (but don’t want to abandon other interests) or have interests across the traditional disciplines of the university, KI will give you the foundation on which you can build. Plus, you will be surrounded by a peer group of like-minded folks with a diversity of interests and a strong commitment to learning. Our core is designed to develop ways of knowing, being, and doing that will serve you well regardless of the direction your education takes you.

This interview is part of a project conducted by Dr. Mary Stewart during her two-month fellowship at the University of Waterloo in the fall of 2022. Thank you to Dr. Stewart for her work in highlighting the transdisciplinary nature of the KI program and its community members, and to Fulbright Canada for making this opportunity possible.