Learning Objectives

• What is The Scholarship of Integration?
• What are practical examples of scholarly activities of The Scholarship of Integration?

The Scholarship of Integration 

Imagine you are a biology faculty and want to integrate some writing activities into your college curriculum. You may collaborate with an English faculty member to work on the curriculum together. This is known as Integration—or as some academies label it—multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary.

The Scholarship of Integration involves making connections across disciplines, placing specialties in a larger context, highlighting data in a new way, and/or educating non-specialists. It requires scholars to work between disciplines, analyzing and interpreting knowledge from these various disciplines in order to create new knowledge; often done in order to tackle large, complex societal issues. 

Boyer (1990) says Integration, “Seeks to interpret, draw together, and bring new insight to bear on original research” using critical analysis and interpretation (p. 19). Integration is similar to Discovery but takes it a step further by interpreting and arguing for what research findings mean—or, can those findings provide a larger understanding of what is going on? 

The Scholarship of Integration is important for stakeholders such as federal agencies, educational institutions, and businesses. All these entities are calling for more integration, because it is through integration that world and institutional problems are solved (Stamp, Tan-Wilson, & Silva, 2015). When researchers of different disciplines come together, they can learn about different types of research, learn to collaborate, and work together, and solve problems, all for the benefit of faculty, the university, and the community at large (Stamp et al., 2015).

Following are some examples of Integration activities and scholarship:

In Boyer’s time, the shift toward Integration was just developing. Today, the academy—and the world—thrives on interdisciplinary work. When faculty collaborate and work to understand what findings mean, it leads to the solving of institution and world issues. 

If you are a faculty member who is newer to this domain and would like to engage more in it, you may start by having discussions with faculty of other disciplines. You may also read research studies outside of your discipline and think about what the findings can mean for your own area of expertise. Could you then apply that to the classroom? The community? 

Remember, too, that Boyer’s domains are meant to overlap; therefore, you may, for example, collaborate with faculty from another discipline on research and this would fit The Scholarship of Discovery and Integration.

References and Suggested Readings

Boyer, E. (1990). Scholarship reconsidered: Priorities of the professoriate. Lawrenceville, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Braxton, J., Luckey, W., & Helland, P. (2002). Institutionalizing a broader view of scholarship in colleges and universities through Boyer’s four domains. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Motala, E. (2015). Public scholarship, democracy, and scholarly engagement. Educational Research for Social Change, 4(2), 22–34.

Stamp, N., Tan-Wilson, A., & Silva, A. (2015). Preparing graduate students and undergraduates for interdisciplinary research. Bioscience, 65(4), 431–439.