Strengthen Your Career by Working Across Disciplines
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Working in higher education often means collaborating with people from different academic or professional backgrounds to achieve common goals. While students and faculty are encouraged to take part in interdisciplinary research or projects, the concept may feel intimidating or overwhelming for staff, particularly for those who are new to the field. But there are many opportunities for professional growth within this workstyle approach.
In a previous piece, , we explored finding opportunities between central university and college/school units for staff positions. In this article, we pull from our own stories to highlight the benefits that come with adopting an interdisciplinary perspective while exploring new career pathways.
Interdisciplinarity in Higher Education
has rapidly shaped academic research in the past four decades. While interdisciplinarity is a central focus for faculty, rarely do we see discussions of how academic and professional staff members can also champion interdisciplinarity on individual and organizational levels within higher education.
Central offices are inherently (and more obviously) interdisciplinary, as they liaise with schools or colleges across the institution. Schools or colleges, however, may seem uniform of disciplines on the surface. But this is far from the case. While they have their unique academic identities, successful colleges or departments rely on cross-disciplinary awareness, not just for faculty's research agenda, but staff members' diverse expertise and skillsets.
Embracing Interdisciplinary Work as Staff
Most higher education professionals have developed academic identities due to the amount of time and energy spent in training. And, many staff members have advanced degrees, increasingly, terminal ones. Our disciplines and experiences give us unique perspectives to engage with a variety of work. In our cases, Mallory trained as a historian, and Yi as an educational researcher.
Beyond developing as scholars, we gained transferable skills from our doctoral experiences, such as critical thinking, problem-solving, and communication. Transferable skills are universal in a way that are recognized across disciplines as leadership qualities, especially when working with faculty who are typically trained in one specific area and have more expertise in their research areas. In both of our cases, we excel in understanding complex systems and communicating effectively with people with an orientation to improve existing processes. While the content knowledge or context may be different, transferable skills will help you succeed.
We now both find ourselves working within the STEM fields. Mallory leverages her past experience working with faculty and 四虎影视 students as a graduate student to enter a new field of career and professional development. She now works with STEM students, faculty, administrators, and alumni to develop programming and engagement initiatives. In Yi's role as the director of education and assessment, she works with both quantitative and qualitative data to inform and improve student outcomes in pharmacy education, which builds on her doctoral training and various experiences working on large-scale research projects. While it may seem untraditional from the outside, our training as humanists and social scientists enhances our roles through the focus on student experiences and social contexts.
Be Mindful of Disciplinary Cultures
While relying on past training and established skills grounds us during transitions, we also encourage readers to take time to identify disciplinary differences and nuances resulting in work and communication styles common in your new area. While interdisciplinarity has been steadily rising, as researchers and scholars many of us still have our primary lens when encountering new problems or challenges at hand. Some fields may prioritize different components of work (reasoning, process, outcomes, methods, tools, etc.), and they may differ from your background and training.
An example from Yi's past experience is designing programming to support doctoral candidates and postdoctoral scholars who are interested in faculty positions. First, she spent time gathering feedback from current postdocs who were adamant about needing separate workshops for faculty career preparation by discipline. Then, she collected available resources online and reached out to various departments to gain input on how current content or materials may be similar or different between STEM and humanities. As a result, Yi invited faculty members from an array of disciplinary backgrounds, career stages, and experiences to highlight the strategies for writing successful application materials, resulting in a robust program for STEM and humanities attendees.
Get Curious and Ask Questions
If you find yourself working in or collaborating with a team whose content knowledge differs from your own, there will be times when you encounter concepts, terminology, or processes that you do not understand. Your gut reaction may be to "fake it till you make it," resigning to yourself that you will figure everything out on your own time. But you can save time and energy, and make valuable connections, by asking questions and getting clarity from those with relevant expertise and experience.
This can also prove useful if you move to a new institution and are trying to navigate the nuances and unique traits. We have experienced this firsthand when trying to develop professional development courses at different institutions, especially when it comes to navigating course classifiers and curriculum approval processes. Mallory has collaborated with biologists, engineers, and 四虎影视 and learning professionals to ensure she met accreditation and evaluation requirements. Because she willingly asked for advice and help from those with more institutional knowledge, she received vital feedback that made the approval process run much more smoothly.
Conclusion
Many benefits can come from individuals with different backgrounds working together. Wherever your path in higher education leads you, be willing to learn and grow from interacting with teams across the institution. Lean on people's strengths and your own, and think about how they can elevate everyone's work. We hope this article propels you further in your journey in the vast and complex higher ed ecosystem.
