In universities worldwide, there has been a movement away from mono-disciplinary towards multi-, inter- and transdisciplinary education, motivated by the notion that complex societal issues call for more than a single disciplinary perspective. To prepare students for a role in addressing these issues, flexibility within educational programs is…

In the midst of the worst public health crisis to hit the nation in a hundred years, and in a moment of racial reckoning, widespread economic uncertainty, and geopolitical instability, it may seem strange to be thinking about a Second American Century. But many times in the past, when faced with great threats and challenges, the nation has created…

In recent years, grand challenge initiatives have emerged nationally with the goal of addressing large, multidisciplinary public problems. The advent of university-led grand challenge initiatives offers an important opportunity to reflect on how institutions of higher education design, implement, and orient externally relevant activities at a time…

This case study explores how a problem-based learning (PBL), graduate education course could be organized in ways that utilize the current knowledge of how people learn within diverse, real world community settings. Students were asked to identify an educational enterprise and a social problem within a culturally diverse, high-need community.…

Higher education institutions (HEIs) are drivers of social change embedded in a society which is experiencing increasingly complex and multifaceted crises. This is partly attributable to the use of conventional and deterministic problem-solving curricula. A combination of a transdisciplinary approach and indigenous knowledge (IK) as transformative…

To prepare a differently educated citizenry and to play meaningful roles in new forms of community-building, colleges and universities must model informed and collaborative ways of learning and working within their own institutional contexts as well as through their interactions with the broader society of which they are an integral part. The path…

Stigma and prejudice are barriers to developing policies addressing homelessness. Awareness development, using civic hackathons, may be beneficial in reducing stigma and promoting policy while offering unique training to social work students. The current study explores the feasibility of hosting a university-based homelessness hackathon;…

Campuses are developing new ways to respond to complex social, cultural, economic and environmental problems by adapting their educational approaches and their scholarship to address a changing world order. At the same time, government agencies, nonprofit organizations and businesses are embracing collaborative approaches to community…

Australia's education system has served the nation well, but must continue to evolve to ensure competitiveness in a world racing towards the future. The report recommendations presented seek to optimise the ways industry partnerships can assist in the provision of contemporary, internationally competitive Science, Technology, Engineering, and…

"New Directions of STEM Research and Learning in the World Ranking Movement: A Comparative Perspective" illustrates new directions of STEM higher education from the perspective of twenty-first century types of learning outcomes and focuses on need for developing an interdisciplinary approach to STEM higher education reform. It provides…

Professionals in the environmental domain require cognitive interdisciplinary skills to be able to develop sustainable solutions to environmental problems. We demonstrate that education in environmental systems analysis allows for the development of these skills. We identify three components of cognitive interdisciplinary skills: (1) the ability…

Community-based research (CBR) is an increasingly familiar approach to addressing social challenges. Nonetheless, the role it plays in attaining community impact is unclear and largely unstudied. Here the authors discuss an emerging framework aimed toward fostering community impact through university and community civic engagement. They describe…

In separate articles, 2 brothers discuss how business and education can learn to cooperate in solving social problems. (Editor)

Corroborated previous research findings demonstrating that problem-solving moderated stress-related depressive symptoms, showing effective problem solvers under high levels of stress reported significantly lower depression than did ineffective problem solvers. Used a prospective design with two measures, controlled for prior depression level, and…

Suggests that college biology programs prepare students to handle biosocial problems by offering courses in many different disciplines and in problem solving. (LS)