Throughout the past ten years, we have initiated many different projects and initiatives that were housed in the Provost Office, then the FUSE Nexus, and finally, The Center for Interdisciplinary Studies. The list below constitutes highlights of the past decade, 2015-2025.
Original programming. Public conversations. Provocative ideas.
Crossing the Lines was a curated series where invited guests from a spectrum of fields engaged with the Pratt community, students, and faculty on crucial contemporary topics and issues.
Through panel discussions, talks, studio visits, lectures, and innovative formats, Crossing the Lines brought the topic of interdisciplinarity itself to the forefront, often in partnership with other Pratt departments, schools, and divisions. Important components of Crossing the Lines were conversations around the meaning and effects of engagement in innovative practice that cuts across—and/or opens new paths within—disciplines.
Throughout the years, we attempted—when budgets and resources have allowed—to create opportunities for fellowships and residencies. We did not intend for the fellowships and the residencies to be perpetual endeavors, not even necessarily sustained over extended periods, but as bursts of opportunities for colleagues and our creative practitioners.
This included an early Fuse Fellow, the Interdisciplinary Fellow, and a residency sponsorship at the Center for Book Arts. The Fuse Fellows program was intended to host one scholar/artist/academic researcher whose work was directly related to interdisciplinary and integrative learning. Prof. Nancy Budwig was the inaugural Fuse Fellow. As the pandemic hit, we put a pause to this Fellowship. The Fellow was invited to share their work with various groups within the Pratt community, and conduct workshops around integrative learning, especially with the PIC faculty.
The Center also endeavored to provide residency opportunities for students, as well as faculty, by partnering with various institutions. The sponsored residency at the Center for Book Arts in NY, for example, provided an opportunity for one student and one faculty member with demonstrated interest in the book arts—and active in the Book minor (for students) or teaching in one of the departments with courses in the book minor (for faculty)—to apply for the residency. Experience in book arts was not necessarily required, as cross-disciplinary practitioners were encouraged to apply and engage with the offerings, the workshops, and the resources of the CBA.
Naming and creating a visible framework for our offerings in interdisciplinary/integrative work and in individualized/independent study would be of tremendous help to students, prospective students, even faculty and the programs as such: naming is not just important, but it is, in fact, crucial.
- The name/framework allows clear identification along with a connective thread to whatever is under the umbrella of the framework.
- The name/framework communicates a deep commitment to the programs–a definitive direction.
- The framework establishes priorities and connections, a reality in which the programs are interwoven–rather than supplemental or isolated.
- The framework provides visibility for students and facilitates a clearer understanding of those offerings and their relevance within the curriculum.
After some considerations and consultations, we settled on The Fuse Nexus in Spring 2017, a name that actually resonated and allowed clear branding and identification. The Fuse Nexus lent itself to be seen as a space of innovation and experimentation, a sphere of rigorous work that would still push the boundaries and be daring within the higher education realm–a cutting-edge (avant-garde!) higher ed practice, if one may allow oneself. The Fuse Nexus gave way to the more formal–and more easily idenetifiable–Center for Interdisciplinary Studies.
The Hubs constituted spaces of exploration for interested faculty, staff, and students at Pratt who were engaged in various ways with the central theme/focus of the particular interdisciplinary hub. Theoretical, historical, and praxis-based problematics and inquiries were explored, while programs and actions were integrated into the fabric of the group’s work. Participants in these working groups were involved in various dimensions of the investigated realm, and integrated questions around the forms and functions of the discipline or interdisciplinary arena in their agenda. These hubs included, among others: Documentary Practices Group; BookPub; Crit the Crit Group; and Museum Innovator’s Collective.
In a more recent rethinking of the hubs, we are endeavoring to create spaces for explorations, programming, and collaboration through cross-departmental lenses. These newly named Hives could provide the opportunity for interdisciplinary teams to experiment and develop projects, and, depending on the topic and the available resources, generate any number of initiatives within the hub: from residencies to public programs, from fellowships to lectures and workshops.
The Center ran two iterations of Kôlab. The first iteration presented an opportunity for PIC-teaching faculty to work on a project with a pedagogical focus in teams of 3–5 members. The second iteration was dedicated to teaching and learning during the pandemic. Faculty interviewed each other and/or engaged in a piece together that addressed some of the challenges they faced.
There were various components for each project in both iterations. A “Team Leader” was identified and was responsible for submitting the proposal and the final report. For both iterations, stipends were provided for PT faculty, and a summative report was requested. In both iterations, Kôlab sought to engage in reflections not only around the specific project but also around the forms and functions of interdisciplinary practice, along with the forms and functions of collaborative and educational work.
The Center launched the New World Lit Lab Lectures & Seminars in order to offer opportunities to dive deep into what we call the New World Literature, a new paradigm for literary and neodisciplinary creative practice.
The Seminars were meant to foment, generate, and provoke debates. The seminars provided intimate spaces of exploration among participants. The basic structure of the seminars allowed us to invite a group of respondents/participants to dive into thematics that were contemporary relative to both literature in a new world, and a new type of world literature.
Soon after the onset of the pandemic, the Center communicated with faculty and those associated with the programs and projects in view of reflecting on adjusted, transformed, and reexamined practice. The umbrella term was Optimal Learning Experiences (OLEx). We endeavored, by necessity but also as open-minded and flexible educators, to connect to those dimensions of our teaching that were most essential, most useful, empathetic, and productive, while allowing students and colleagues to perform within an obviously transformed learning environment. We shared ideas and classroom work, as well as strategies and approaches during faculty meetings, staff meetings, impromptu salons, and a variety of non-required gatherings.
The OLEx automatically/organically came to a close towards the end of 2021, without much of a finissage or grand closure. We asked many to share some reflections on their OLEx—and we officially archived this dimension of our practice under The OLEx Files. Ultimately, OLEx also stood not only for that particular initiative, but for the necessary fluidities, flexibilities, and nimbleness that are an essential part of our higher education realm.
Open Circuits generated opportunities for faculty to organize and facilitate events and/or discussions with networks of researchers, makers, thinkers, and community members. This project sought to engage different stakeholders and practitioners, explore varieties of collaborative work and practice, and reflect on the forms of inter/neo disciplinary ventures which impact different realms of society.
The Salons provided a space to share information and discuss possibilities related to interdisciplinary study at Pratt across the curriculum, co-curriculum, and beyond. Fuse Salons ranged in scale from small gatherings to town-hall style meetings, and took place in a host of locations—from studios to the student union to Zoom. We also held salons with faculty, staff, and students, and our orientation sessions were, in effect, places for salon-like explorations.
The Think T(h)anks were an extension of the salons and provided a space for conversation and free-wheeling imagining of possibilities. Faculty and staff had an opportunity to share their challenges, along with strategies and approaches that provided solutions. In addition, they proved to be gatherings where we could collectively think through possible programmatic and structural visionings that could better serve constituents of the Pratt community, as well as provide more learning pathways for interdisciplinary exploration and action.
The major merit of the salons and think t(h)anks turned out to be that they provided a genuine space for elaborate and free discussion, where participants could query each other and articulate ideas, whether those ever materialized or not. From radical calendars to curricular models, from pedagogy partners to a giant collective ongoing independent study, the imaginative elaborations at times ended up being implemented, at others simply elaborated with passion without ever becoming part of the Pratt landscape.
Within the Center, workshops were held with many faculty to develop assignments, exercises, and activities pertaining to the specific outcomes of PICs. We could not find anywhere such a vault—say, the way one finds activities around drawing or writing and composition. We realized that it would be difficult to locate assignments that were integrative in nature, college-level appropriate and that would allow scaffolded work.
Throughout the years and at admittedly irregular intervals, we asked faculty to provide more assignments related to various outcomes, assignments that could obviously be transformed and customized for a particular class. These could range from simple exercises to in-class activities to more modular projects.
This vault provided seeds for development, and allowed faculty to share and develop their teaching practice.