Bill McLaughlin (posted 12 December 2005)

Outputs (Immediate products of the seminar produced by the participants):

• Identification of the barriers and facilitators that seminar participants hold prior to participating in a boundary crossing (e.g., across disciplines, across faculty members and students, across practicing professionals and academics) learning experience that includes faculty, practicing professionals, and graduate and undergraduate student participants.

• A draft journal article which outlines and/or identifies transportation planning policy issues and likely community impacts connected to a ring road transportation corridor in a small, rural, university community.

• A draft journal article which compares and contrasts problem solving frameworks created by various disciplinary teams (e.g., social sciences, transportation engineering, planning, biophysical sciences), interdisciplinary teams, and/or practice oriented teams (e.g., city planners, field level transportation engineers).  These frameworks will address a ring road transportation proposal in a small, rural, university community.

• A draft journal article which describes the workings of teams or groups involved in addressing a ring road transportation proposal in a small, rural, university community.

• A draft journal article which identifies and describes the likely impacts to the biophysical, social, economic, and human settlement patterns of a small, rural, university community.

Outcomes (Things that participants in the seminar will be able to DO in their positions and outside of the University after participating in the seminar):  Participants will be able to:

• Work comfortably across disciplines, and between academics and practicing field oriented professionals
• Recognize language and conceptualization barriers when working in diverse teams/groups and know actions to take to facilitate group learning and understanding
• Appreciate what other disciplines add to solving complex, messy problems situated in ongoing, dynamic, overlapping systems (e.g., ecosystems, economy, community) and know about tools (e.g., GIS, modeling) that might be useful in such situations
• Identify and appropriately use and value alternative thinking strategies (e.g., scientific thinking, design oriented thinking, critical thinking) when confronted with complex problems  

 Activities (In and outside the classroom):

• A variety of exercises designed for teams that result in team outputs yet require individual reflection and sharing.

Who Else to Involve (Proposed course make-up):

• Up to 6 university professors (2 social scientists, 2 biophysical scientists, 2 engineers)

• At least 3 graduate students

• At least 3 undergraduate students

• At least 3 practicing professionals (2 technical and 1 elected official)

Comment:  Maybe the class can be larger than 15 participants if we truly envision working in teams.  The above suggested organization creates a secure environment for all participants.
 

Outputs:

• Weekly journal that we prepare in last ten minutes of each seminar and share on class web site.
• 1-2 papers, done collaboratively, on either technical topic or process topic (one halfway through semester and one final paper).

Outcomes:

• More effectively know how to work in interdisciplinary teams.
• Know how to more effectively document process collaboratively.

Activities to make these possible:

• Include readings that provide us learning opportunities in interdisciplinary teams, collaborative approach to work.
• Technical activities (faculty and students) that advance our understanding of ring road and its various implications
• Readings on sustainable transportation.
• Readings on ring roads and related issues.
• Development of technical tools that can support analysis.

Who else to include?/Other dimensions?

• Who from the community?
• Which students?
• How to decide who gets in?
• Someone from political science? business? law?
• Public participation

Nick Sanyal (Posted 13 December 2005)
Outputs and Products:

• A whitepaper summarizing key, innovative professional literature-an annotated bibliography perhaps.
• A manuscript that that looks at the pedagogical process of moving from single disciplines to a trans-disciplinary team
• A workbook that the community could use to contribute their perceptions of likely impacts (good and bad).
• A reflective journal that could be analyzed for the paper (#2) above.
• A technical paper/analysis.

Outcomes or New Abilities:

• Be able to work collaboratively in interdisciplinary settings without feeling insecure, inferior/superior.
• Know how to effectively work in teams.
• Be able to share, from your perspective/discipline, so others can add to or take advantage of what each knows by adding his/her own.; e.g., modeling of social science data.

Activities:

• Focused identification and sharing of knowledge in a non-technical, yet robust way.
• Reflection
• Field visits and observations
• Interviews and invited experts.
• Shared readings, discussions—participation!

Who is Missing:

• We are currently all mostly middle aged and mostly white men.
• Policy person.
• Community person; someone form Pullman/WSU

JD Wulfhorst (Posted 15 December 2005)
Outputs:

• First and foremost, I would develop, record, produce, & advertise, a working dialogue about the process we’re embarking on, including any needed protocols.  Ideally I see the group needs to be fluid, dynamic, and allowing for change (not necessarily all w/in the confines of a semester, but more so over time if we hope for this to be sustained).
• For the Spring 06 term, a ‘white paper’ on a tbd topic seems in order, as this is innovative enough, and has the possibility of so many directions, I hesitate to PLAN TO bite off more than a new group could chew.  I would see these as a potential series, all of which could then also be developed into manuscripts following some review & dialogue from a broader community they come from.
• I hope for a broader, and much more (symbolically) formal institutionalization of a University/municipal partnership arrangement to address common issues of sustainability, with an intentional design of appropriate interdisciplinary perspectives.

Outcomes:

• Explicit awareness & acknowledgement of potential approach differences.  To do this, I recommend the group entertain an early-semester exercise (designed by an interdisciplinary Philosophy seminar team-taught by O’Rourke/Eigenbrode and in relation to the UI-IGERT project) that would allow for collective introspection on what capital, values, and objectives the individuals bring to and harbor within the group.
• Continuation of a pulse reading related to collective morale at UI, in Moscow, and/or w/in special interests as the University continues to move through an innovative, transitional period to re-define itself as more sustainable.

Activities:

• Some readings that would stimulate discussion and allow those with time and interest to identify and gather additional materials.
• Field-based tours and/or workshops to engage different stakeholders trying to discuss the issues, i.e., Ring Road.
• Rotating list of guests that listen and/or engage (but not with the intent that they would always ‘present’ to the STWG).

Other Folks/Dimensions:

• Seems vital to me to get someone from Architecture/Landscape Architecture involved in this.
• From my perspective, the more students and community/professional folks we get to engage & commit to this the better it would be.  As such, perhaps we need a process to ‘draw straws’ for the faculty slots?  (I’m amenable to some kind of allocation as early as the Fri, 12/16 meeting re: this).  Seems awkward to leave anyone out that wants to participate, but have the good problem of a potential bog with too many of us trying to do too much, if unorganized.
   

Michael Dixon (Posted 16 December 2005)
Outputs:

• White paper discussing the knowledge and tools required for comprehensive transportation planning
• White paper describing the characteristics of a viable comprehensive planning process
• History of Moscow development, describing how Moscow evolved to its current state
• Documented implementation of a comprehensive planning process from community goals to performance measures to alternatives analysis

Outcomes:

• Cohesive long-term sustainable transportation study group that advances the consideration of community development impacts on the economy, society, and environment.
• Identify important high-priority issues in sustainable transportation
• Compose improved practices for addressing issues in sustainable transportation
• Develop tools that increase the viability of comprehensive planning processes
• Explain sustainable transportation and why it should be practiced to the public
• Integrate additional faculty and students into the group

Activities that we need to do to make the outputs and outcomes possible

• Regularly revisit our goals (planned outputs and outcomes)
• Regular informed discussion and exercises (bring in outside participants when needed)
• Vote on highest priority outputs and outcomes
• Select individual or group to oversee progress towards a specific output and/or outcome.
• Each group or individual has 5 minutes, weekly, to present progress towards an output and/or outcome (we may want to focus on one outcome or output at a time, until it is completed)
• No more than two or three outputs that require an individual or group to monitor progress
• No more than two or three outcomes that require an individual or group to monitor progress
• Out-of-seminar investigation, review, writing, assignments, development

Who else to include and what other dimensions are needed:

• We need to make sure that we have sufficient qualifications/skills to address the economic, social, and environmental aspects of transportation, land use, public policy, and politics.