Thank you for 15 years of transdisciplinary learning . The VC’s Courses are being retired in 2024.
Stay tuned for a new transdisciplinary initiative, commencing in 2025.
VC’s Courses stand for critical thinking about urgent problems across disciplinary boundaries.
This is why the University matters.
What’s next for the VC’s Courses#
What the VC’s Courses aim to do#
The VC’s Courses aim to develop transdisciplinary inquiry skills and collaborate across disciplinary difference. Across all VC’s Courses, there are common learning outcomes we seek to achieve.
Develop literacy around the nature of complex problems#
Complex problems have no natural limits and interconnectedness; there are multiple ways that problems can be defined; there are major irreducible unknowns and unknown unknowns; context matters, including real-world constraints (such as historical structures and processes, economic and political circumstances, cultural context); ‘solutions’ can only be partial and temporary
Construct arguments built on sound critical thinking skills#
including understanding the nature of logical fallacies; major cognitive biases and de-biasing strategies; simple statistical and quantitative reasoning
Ascertain the positives and negatives of diversity of thought and being#
Diversity in a broad sense, including mental models of stakeholders; social, cultural, and natural interests, values, and personalities; embedded structures of power, legitimacy and knowledge
Cultivate effective collaboration and integration across perceived boundaries#
including with researchers and experts, people affected by a given problem, decision-makers, and stakeholders with power and vested interests, and with disenfranchised communities
Devise a personal, values-based repertoire for effecting change#
including understanding the complexities of change; the effective use of evidence; strategies for managing and mitigating unknowns; experience of where to intervene in a system