Faculty Publications

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2007

Disciplines

Social Control, Law, Crime, and Deviance | Sociology

Abstract

In recent years, the administration, faculty and research professionals at the University of Illinois at Chicago have shown considerable interest in facilitating interdisciplinary research on campus. Beginning in 2006, the Office of the Provost and the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research provided seed funding for the creation of several interdisciplinary research (IDR) centers on campus to encourage interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary scholarship and education. This study is a product of one of those centers – the UIC Interdisciplinary Center for Research on Violence. The study was undertaken with three primary objectives: (1) to assess the IDR climate and level of interest on the UIC campus; (2) to identify any perceived obstacles to successful IDR initiatives; and (3) to make policy recommendations that might facilitate the growth of IDR. In April and May of 2006, an online survey of UIC faculty and research professionals was conducted. A total of 457 UIC employees completed the online survey. This report focuses on the 325 respondents (71.1%) who are faculty members and administrators. To adjust for known biases in patterns of non-response, the sample was weighted by gender and college counts to reflect their true representation in the UIC faculty population. The results indicate that roughly 8 out of 10 respondents are affiliated with a unit that is currently involved in interdisciplinary research (IDR) activities (78%), and a similar percentage claimed to have been personally involved in IDR (81%). Those experiences, then, form the basis of the opinions and evaluations reported here.

Comments

Final report to the UIC Interdisciplinary Center for Research on Violence.

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