Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Borden, Rebecca B

Titel

A center of learning: A case study of an interdisciplinary research center

Ort / Verlag

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses

Erscheinungsjahr

2003

Quelle

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• This study is a case study of an interdisciplinary research center, the Educational Design Center. As interdisciplinary research centers are gaining a greater role not only as legitimate and productive projects within universities, but as units that support a multiplicity of institutional functions, a better understanding is needed of how they work and the value that member's attribute to their center experience. Using the organizational culture framework, this study makes a significant contribution to the literature because it captures and portrays the ways in which a center functions beyond its structural features. The Educational Design Center provided graduate students with pre-professional experiences that included: research training, hands-on experiences, interaction with practitioners in the field, addressing authentic problems, mentorships with professors, and a cohort of peers. However, students and faculty experienced the Educational Design Center differently. Only a handful of faculty found the center to be a meaningful and valuable professional experience. The faculty's level of involvement ranged from non-existent to engaged, based upon the extent to which they saw a role for themselves in the center and the extent to which the center's agenda overlapped with their areas of interest and research agendas. This study also found that the primary reason why faculty chose to withdraw or remain involved in the center had to do with fittingness, and not incentives and rewards.