One, Two, Three: Why We Went Interdisciplinary

Big word, right? But don't let the syllables intimidate you.

Here's a translation, Sarah style:

• Interdisciplinary is a bougie term for collaboration. It's when one academic "discipline" (aka, field of study) meets another. Instead of competing, they stand shoulder-to-shoulder, tackling the same problem from different angles.

See, most of the time, our default mode when we see two separate angles is to pit them against one another, instead of pitting them together against a problem. In the words of Dr. Serizawa (Godzilla, 2014), we don't have a lot of gears beyond, "Let them fight."

And that's no beuno, when we got real problems going on.

So, if we're not having our disciplines fight it out here on Lantova, titan style, what's our approach?

Like I said, collaboration.

Collaboration means:

• Our disciplines actually talk to each other. (If you could walk into a restaurant, you'd find all three seated at a table, chatting it up.)

• They don’t get thrown in a blender.

• They’re not at war.

• They stay distinct and connected.

That brings us to our second big word you'll hear regularly around here: Integration.

"Integration is not a blending, not a homogenization. Integration involves maintaining differentiation while also achieving linkage, creating a synergy that enables the whole to be greater than the sum of its parts.” - Dr. Daniel Siegel, The Developing Mind

If you brain glazed over, here's a sporty example, literally. Think baseball. That's right. One field. Nine players. Nine positions.

Nobody wins if all nine players crowd first base. And you can't have players bailing on their own position to cover someone else's. Note, that sometimes the ball lands in between. And making the call when that happens gets...tricky. (Hello outfielders.)

Same with us. We’ll hit tricky spots at Lantova—but here’s the ground rule:

Everything begins, returns, and ends with Yahweh.

We study psychology through the lens of how God designed the world.

We create out of our deep relationship with Him.

Get the foundation right, and everything else falls into place.

One, two, three.