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Models of Interdisciplinary Research and Service Learning at Hope College
This article describes the challenges Hope College faculty faced and successfully overcame when they implemented two interdisciplinary research projects. One project, in bioinformatics and microbial genomics, is focused on developing processes for the automated generation of genome-scale metabolic reconstructions for all sequenced microbial genomes. The repository of metabolic reconstructions enables the scientific community to carry out metabolic modeling studies, which have a wide range of applications. The second effort, a nursing and engineering international development project, is attempting to improve the drinking water in a rural farming community in Cameroon, West Africa. Noting that communication across disciplines is a primary hurdle to effective interdisciplinary work, the article describes the ways faculty members and students learned to understand each other’s skills set and language. In the international development project, for example, “engineers were forced to recognize that engineered systems rarely function in isolation and that social, cultural, and economic factors play an equally important role in the success or failure of a project.” The article also outlines many of the successful outcomes of these projects—including the transformation of many undergraduate courses and the involvement of students in interdisciplinary research projects from the start. In addition, each project, initially funded by grants from HHMI, was able to obtain external funding. This article appeared in the fall 2007 issue (Volume 28, Number 2) of Focus, a publication of the Council on Undergraduate Research.
A Hope College Interdisciplinary Project in International Development
This photograph shows a Hope College engineering student discussing the performance of filters for a water treatment system in Cameroon, West Africa. Engineering and nursing students worked together on the project.
Media: PDFProgram Director: F. Sheldon Wettack, Ph.D.
Award Years: 1991, 1996, 2004, 2008
Summary: Hope College is a private baccalaureate institution in Holland, Michigan. Its HHMI-funded initiatives include:
- A primary focus on the interdisciplinary nature of science, marked by
- The development of interdisciplinary case studies that present compelling, real-world problems, incorporate activities grounded in research on learning, and use a data-rich approach that develops students’ ability to think about problems quantitatively and from different disciplinary perspectives;
- Interdisciplinary minors in neuroscience and computational modeling;
- A collaborative with Saint Olaf and Carleton colleges to develop the interdisciplinary curricula; and
- Support for interdisciplinary faculty collaborations that enhance faculty scholarship and teaching.
- The Hughes Science Education Scholar Program, in which students pursuing careers in K-12 teaching partner with Hope science and education faculty members to develop hands-on interdisciplinary science modules;
- A five-week program—focusing on Hispanic, African American, and Southeast Asian students, as well as other groups underrepresented in the sciences—that brings 12 high school students and two teachers to campus to engage in research; the students also attend career workshops, field trips, and sessions on applying to college; and
- An early entry research program for first-year students, including those from groups traditionally underrepresented in science, to bring them into the culture of science and promote investigative learning.