DISCUSSION NOTES
UNIVERSITY TASK FORCE SEMINAR
INTEGRATING SCIENCE, MATHEMATICS, AND TECHNOLOGY
September 16, 1999
Dick Roberds - Main thrust - Generate Ideas.
Foundation for Planning.
OPENING REMARKS
Kevin Giovanetti - Physics
Science explores many areas. Need environment for collaborative and interdisciplinary ideas. Need to pool resources to improve teaching and research. Need to find good people. We have good people. Not important to look for best administrator to foster collaborative. Give faculty the freedom to work with other disciplines. Don't abolish departments. Departments are beneficial. Bad to merge departments or mix disciplines. Ownership of space is important. Miller Lab is shared space. Smaller labs are optimally used with local control. Have to make space productive. Teacher education in science and math instruction should be pursued. Machine shop has been excellent collaborative effort. Need more emphasis on electronics. Need to share resources more. We are encountering limitations in assigning credit hours. How do we share courses during a semester.
Doug Dennis - Biology
Need propinquity, i.e., nearness or kinship. Three areas for collaboration.
1. Centralization of facilities needed in the following areas
a. Imaging facilities in one space.
b. Teaching lab to be shared by molecular, biotech and biochemistry courses.
c. Computer lab - biology, chemistry and math work on bioinformatics
d. Science library
e. Central core facility for biotech, bioprocess center2. Programmatic Intercalation
a. Need to let students move back and forth between science and technology colleges. Hybrid minor possible?|
b. Joint seminars
c. New programs - neurosciences, environmental science
d. Graduate program
3. Research how can we collaborate?
James Sochacki - Mathematics
Need people with different specialties to get along and work together. Parallel computing system possible. Could be used to model system. Building applied math system would be good. Need center for applied math and statistics. Math department can get along with others and work together.
Dan Downey - Chemistry
Came from traditional chemistry program. Basic science program provided foundation for interdisciplinary work. Close proximity is important. Hard to leave offices. Direction and mission also important. Identify problem. What is our mission? Administrators don't force people to collaborate. Collaboration can be helped by encouraging students to take courses in other fields. Duplication in courses can be good, but is usually inefficient. Students in ISAT and other disciplines could take each other's courses. Equipment could be shared. Could share costs to replace equipment. Need initial investment of time and money.
Steve Frysinger - ISAT
Don't need to shuffle administrative staff. Environmental health program is in development. COB and CISAT Environment Information Management program in development. Environment is interdisciplinary in and of itself. Could combine courses we already have. Focus on undergraduate environmental research would be good. MBA program could work on environmental management. Can go further than science, technology and math.
Kevin Apple - Psychology
Facility and resource integration is important. Course duplication happens a lot. Research methodology course would be very good. Need culture of interdisciplinary science. Need to have a variety of research methodologies.
Cole Welter - Art and Art History
Architecture and industrial design are collaborative. Design is critical. Collaborative by nature. Need facilities to combine Art and Art History and Engineering Manufacturing in ISAT. Virginia Tech has the only other industrial design program in Virginia . People needed to help in the design of products. Industrial design cuts across all disciplines. Practical applications are possible here. Facilities here are an issue.
OPEN DISCUSSION
Mo Zarrugh
All items have to be manufactured as well as designed. Need to upgrade study of manufacturing. Manufacturing is one of the main factors in economy of Virginia. Want manufacturing that uses art, math, computers, business. Manufacturing is effective way to collaborate. Manufacturing Innovation Center deals with that. Biopharmaceuticals and Micromanufacturing are examples too.
Bob Kolvoord
Data visualization is area for cross-disciplinary work. Could involve lots of areas.
Environmental Health Speaker
Need better risk assessment. Would have to work together on that.
Jerry Taylor - Physics/ISAT
Center for Materials Science came together a few years ago. Need to get people together to discuss common problems. Many topics are out there to collaborate on. Need to form a mission and then develop an academic program. Materials Science Program is distributed. Sharing of ideas is important. Many areas are available for collaboration. CISAT Academic Buildings A1-A2-A3 would provide space.
Gina McDonald
Graduate program is slippery slope. Do we want to be undergraduate or graduate? JMU doesn't seem to be making a monetary commitment to graduate programs. All for interdisciplinary collaboration. Need two different backgrounds. Still need core foundation. Research collaboration is not a problem. Need research space and funding.
Bob McKown
Emphasized care needed in planning graduate program. Biotechnology will explode and JMU can develop work force for that. Biotechnology is not just biology. How about hybrid major? Would be marketable.
Jim Barnes
Design in Technology groups exist too. Visualization technology and innovation are important too.
Brian Augustine - Chemistry
Material Science covers many areas. What are we strong at? Need to choose carefully. Build on strengths. Materials Science minor is important too.
Bob Able - NSF
How much disciplinary and interdisciplinary research to support? Need to decide relative priorities.
Dean Cocking
Need to incorporate women and minorities. Have been above national average in admitting women. Faculty makeup does not follow. Unidentified speaker Departments need to reduce number of hours for majors or have university add back hours required to graduate. Students would be interested. We take students and make them better. We do get bright students who don't have a similar program elsewhere.
Cheryl Tally - Psychology
JMU does not salute research to same degree as teaching. How can research be rewarded and supported. ISAT is trying to support research.
GENERAL DISCUSSION
Teaching and research are not separate, but are two different facets of education. Undergraduate research is important in education. Teaching labs - could collaborate on labs to share equipment and use sources efficiently. Students need to rub shoulders too. How will sciences moving to CISAT affect non-science on other side? Interdisciplinary courses don't count for General Education credit but should. Have obligation to non-majors to keep them in the loop. Non-majors pay for the department. Would like to increase undergraduate research in summer. That would be very fertile ground for collaboration and interdisciplinary work. Centers like MIC would promote collaboration and integration. Structure doesn't drive collaboration.
Sharon Gastner - Library
High costs for materials. Can't support materials for all areas. What do we expect? Need to figure costs for printed information in course costs. Library in A-2 is very small facility-only online materials.
Dean Cocking
Need resources to sustain program like this. Library is important for this work. Other programs named rooms after businesses.
General Discussion
Only the beginning of the discussion. Sub-task-forces will come next. Affordable, sustainable support could be forthcoming. Deans will choose task forces. Don't know how they will be structured.
Lon Enloe
Thought process. If we had to leave our area of expertise and do something new, what would we do?
How do we define a problem and a need so we can fill it? Lots of positions to fill. Can fill these needs by collaborating. There are problems and we are problem solvers. Have to be careful to not be driven by the problem, but we have to be and produce problem solvers. JMU is looking for an identity for the future. Could we be the Carnegie Mellon of Virginia? Resources will come to us. Need to emphasize undergrads more than the others.
