thinkfetti

“Interdisciplinary” is a Janus word.

Let’s reach beyond the relatively literal meaning, “between disciplines” (Is there perhaps some implied longing here? As in between meals? Between relationships? Middle Ages? I wonder how many people alive in 1100 C.E. would have thought of themselves as ‘between ages’?)

Like Janus, this word looks both backwards and forwards; it is present at a threshold.

“Interdisciplinary” looks back to a definition - condescendingly bestowed by the “disciplinists” - connoting “not this and not that either.” And it looks forward to an intersubjective (uh oh, the language is circling back on me now…) understanding that my identity depends on - no, IS - the tangle of all the relationships of which I am inseparable part.

My teaching can hardly be called “disciplinary.” In my music courses, I am not preparing students to be future music academics. In my creativity and innovation courses, or in the design and leadership courses I have taught in the chemical engineering department, my teaching does not lend itself to being described as being “within a discipline.” I am not (even?) an engineer.

But let’s transcend the hardly, the not’s. It’s time for a new story (joined to and enjoying many other concurrent stories).

The blend, the hybrid. Silko’s half-breed Tayo. Risk, leaping the gap. Poetry.

Frozen accidents are chance happenings that have become ad hoc standards because it would take too much effort to switch to another configuration. The term “frozen accidents” is primarily used in discussions of Darwinian evolution. An example: the heart is generally a little to the left of center in a person’s body. There’s no particular reason that evolution didn’t roll the dice differently early on, leading to hearts being a little to the right of center. But once the original configuration was set, it got locked in.

In the abstract space of the working world, frozen accidents are ubiquitous. Even if, in principle, there are fifteen ways to route the paperwork, there’s only one way for which the boss (or the bureaucrats pushing the paper) say, “but THIS is the way it’s done here.” Because a decision was made sometime in the past, it has become an ad hoc standard. Now, the logic behind some decisions made in the past may still be apropos, but we all know situations in which a) the logic employed at the time of the decision is inappropriate in the present context, or b) there wasn’t logic - it was a choice that could have been made by rolling dice or some other chance method.

Sometimes, institutional memory is insufficient to figure out why a decision was made the way it was. Many decisions made in the past can seem like they were accidental choices.

In any event, the decisions have been frozen. I like to call them “frozen accidents” because the idea behind the term is so powerful.

Here’s what it looks like:

1. A choice is made between various perceived, available configurations in a very specific context.
2. Later, the context has changed, but the choice that was made remains active, a “frozen accident.”
3. At this later time, other configurations can be perceived, but they’re no longer “available.”

The idea of “frozen accidents” is helpful in understanding why good ideas sometimes don’t get off the ground. It is part of the reason organizational change isn’t easier.

Here are some examples of frozen accidents in the abstract “space” of work, in the specific context of the university where I work. Some of these are specific to my workplace, others are more general:

• Saturday and Sunday are the weekend days. Need these always be the same? The same for everybody? Do weeks have to be seven days long?
• There are two regular semesters and a summer semester per 12 month period. Other universities have quarters, for example. But it’s rare for a university to switch from one system to the other, although some do.
• Faculty and students interact through “courses” taught within “disciplines.” There are other models besides “courses” for learning. Most people learn much more outside of courses than they do in them. Internships, problem-based learning, etc…
• Student transcripts record pretty much only what “letter grade” a student “earned” in each course. We do it because that’s how it’s been done, it’s simple (although oversimplifying what happened in the student’s learning), and it’s an ad hoc standard that employers understand.
• Courses all begin at the beginning of a semester and end at the end of a semester. Why should all courses/topics have the same duration of treatment? When courses all end at the same time, all the final projects and exams fall at the same time, inefficient at best and a recipe for burnout at worst.

For anyone who perceives the tensions between the way things are and the way they “should” or “could” be, frozen accidents are both interesting and frustrating. They represent the “inertia” of the system, and we know that organizations with too much inertia invariably decline.

Mat Callahan’s 2005 book The Trouble With Music focuses on the way the “music industry” affects the creation and reception of music. The book is not genre-specific, but covers many musics, from folk to hip-hop to classical. He quotes from an interview in The Independent with Martin Engstroem, who in 2003 was the chief “talent scout” for Deutsche Gramophone, one of the very few major labels when it comes to classical music:

“‘Our releases are primarily linked to the artist, the star. People go to a concert, fall in love with the artist and buy their record. Yes, it’s a big change, but it’s one we have to live with. Ten years ago, you went purely for quality.’ But not now? ‘Of course, you still go for that, because we’re still talking DG. But quality is no longer enough on its own. You have to listen to the market. We’ve recently signed a lot of charismatic young artists like Lang Lang and Hilary Hahn, because we feel that’s where the energy lies.’ He agreed this runs counter to the old assumption that age and wisdom make the best music. ‘But that is not what the public says. To keep our figures in the black, we have to listen to the market.’” - quoted in Callahan, pp. 177-8.

Darwinian fitness (in the context of survivability in a market) does not equal quality…

In a previous post, I wrote about a few of the most significant challenges facing me as a music professor and conductor at a small science and engineering university located in a remote area. But I don’t think the issues are specific to my location. Instead, looking at the folding of major orchestras in this country and many other factors such as educational trends and funding models, I believe this is a widespread, multifaceted cultural phenomenon. Now, given these challenges, what can/should be done?

In product design, it’s common to talk about a product’s life cycle. There are plenty of empirical and model-based theories about life cycles, most of which talk about growth, maturity, and decline phases. What would happen if we were to talk about the orchestra as a product, a designed system that has a relatively well-defined functionality? Into which phase of the product life cycle would you put the orchestra?

Going further…. If you were the product manager of this particular product, the orchestra, how would you evaluate the market situation, and what would you suggest?

I was poking around Technorati, searching at entries with education and design as tags, and I found this interesting blog describing “Web 2.0″ tools that could be useful to students and faculty at various level institutions. I looked at a few of the collaborative tools…somewhat promising.

But then I found a link to a course being offered this semester by Harvard Law School in conjunction with Harvard University Extension. As far as I can tell, this is a class about argumentation, particularly in relatively new venues such as blogs, wikis, and the like. That’s interesting enough in its own right. But then…much of the class is being taught within SecondLife, even the office hours of one of the faculty members are situated in the virtual world. Could “distance education” be about to experience a paradigm shift?