{"id":2745,"date":"2013-06-18T12:35:51","date_gmt":"2013-06-18T18:35:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/?p=2745"},"modified":"2013-06-28T13:12:37","modified_gmt":"2013-06-28T19:12:37","slug":"irise-rising","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/?p=2745","title":{"rendered":"IRISE Rising"},"content":{"rendered":"

In previous posts I\u2019ve addressed my university\u2019s interest in building partnerships with the city of Denver<\/a> and some of the barriers that impede interdisciplinary teaching and research<\/a> on campus. The prospects for better partnerships and interdisciplinary work on a host of topics may have just improved with pilot funding that’s been awarded to a new initiative at DU, the Interdisciplinary Research Incubator for the Study of Social (In)Equality, or IRISE<\/a>.\u00a0 This is one of six initiatives to emerge from a \u201cRenew DU<\/a>\u201d strategic planning process aimed at transforming teaching and research at the university. In my view IRISE is potentially the most<\/i> transformative of the six funded initiatives. The IRISE Advisory Board\u2014of \u00a0which I\u2019m a member\u2014met for the first time last week to get our work off the ground. We\u2019ve been asked to help promote the cause, hence this post.<\/p>\n

\"1<\/a><\/p>\n

IRISE comes out of DU\u2019s Center for Multicultural Excellence<\/a>.\u00a0 The goal of IRISE is to<\/p>\n

\u2026provide an institutional structure dedicated to (1) facilitating the interdisciplinary development of teaching and learning, research, and creative works focused on promoting equality for domestic historically marginalized communities, and (2) supporting institutional efforts to increase access and equity for domestic historically underrepresented populations in the Academy\u2026Our overall aim is to create a permanent institute and establish an intellectual home for faculty and students to engage in teaching and learning, research, scholarship, and creative works that advance Inclusive Excellence<\/a> and diversity at DU, as well furthering DU\u2019s public good mission by extending and connecting this work to local communities.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The mechanisms that IRISE will use for accomplishing this goal include recruiting post-doctoral researchers and visiting scholars for residencies of one to two years, offering curriculum development grants to faculty and research grants to students, and hosting guest speakers, workshops, reading groups, seminars, and conferences.<\/p>\n

The IRISE Advisory Board is still discussing whether we\u2019ll prioritize particular thematic areas for research, or simply keep things as open as possible. Both approaches have their merits, and IRISE can be a player on just about any front. Personally, I\u2019m hopeful that IRISE will attend to social inequalities in city planning and development, and how these inequalities are reinforced by urban design, architecture, the configuration of built space, and other \u201cmaterialities.\u201d \u00a0The historical moment is certainly right for engaging with this theme.\u00a0 We\u2019re living in the age of the city. Cities now contain most of the people living on the planet.\u00a0 They are increasingly vulnerable to the vagaries of nature and the vicissitudes of global geopolitics.\u00a0 They\u2019re also becoming much more ethnically diverse.\u00a0 As we\u2019re discovering courtesy of the troubles in Turkey<\/a>\u00a0(sparked by plans to re-develop a city park in Istanbul) and the insurgency that’s erupting in\u00a0Brazil<\/a>\u00a0(catalyzed by the rising cost of public transportation), we ignore social equity issues around urban development at our own peril.<\/p>\n

\"2<\/a>

Urban Haves and Have-Nots? \u201cParais\u00f3polis\u201d, S\u00e3o Paulo, Brazil<\/p><\/div>\n

Social equity issues around urban development are as significant in Denver as anywhere else. \u00a0The’ve\u00a0been the subject for numerous posts on this blog, including\u00a0multicultural planning<\/a>\u00a0(see also here<\/a>),\u00a0homelessness<\/a>,\u00a0affordable housing<\/a>,\u00a0water rights<\/a>,\u00a0park design and use<\/a>, and\u00a0access to public space<\/a>. These issues require interdisciplinary attention. They make our city a fertile\u2014and perhaps extraordinarily attractive\u2014ground for teaching, research, and public outreach that integrates the arts, sciences, and professional schools. I see IRISE as having considerable potential for catalyzing interactions and synergies between several other entities on campus whose subject matters encompass the social equity of urban development.\u00a0 These include the Rocky Mountain Land Use Institute<\/a>, the Intermodal Transportation Institute<\/a>, the Institute for Enterprise Ethics<\/a>, and the new Center for Sustainability<\/a>. \u00a0With the rise of MOOCs<\/a>\u00a0throwing into question the value of a residential education it might be wise to intensify the case-making for why students and faculty should come to live and study in Denver as opposed to living and studying someplace else. \u00a0It’s certainly hard for me to imagine a better natural laboratory than Denver for investigating issues in the cultural and environmental sustainability of human settlement.<\/p>\n

\"3<\/a>

Lincoln Park, Denver, after the Occupy eviction of 15 October 2011 (D. Saitta)<\/p><\/div>\n

Whatever directions IRISE goes, its leadership is in great hands and the prospects are exciting.\u00a0 The Big Question concerns the willingness and ability of other<\/i> academic entities to play ball.\u00a0 Here, I speak for myself and not anyone else associated with IRISE.\u00a0 Interdisciplinary work is not about combining people from different areas only to have them do the same old stuff in the company of others.\u00a0 Established disciplines already have substantial track records of borrowing, sharing, and poaching topics, theories, and methods across the boundaries that divide them (behaviors that are captured by the concepts of multi-disciplinarity and cross-disciplinarity). Will the traditional academic units at DU help IRISE pool expertise and resources in ways that can raise their own boats while furthering a common endeavor? Will participants in collaborative projects to study social inequality be able to recognize new<\/i> analytical ground that no single discipline currently occupies? Will they be able to collectively imagine and invent the brand new<\/i> models, concepts, metaphors, heuristics, and methods that might be required for solving the numerous equity problems that currently bedevil us?\u00a0 Given that interdisciplinary work tests inter-personal as well as professional skills, will collaborators be able to subordinate individual egos and career ambitions to a greater cause? Will promotion and tenure committees at different levels of the university, and the individual deans of academic units, fully appreciate what interdisciplinary scholarship involves?\u00a0 Will the central administration actively and publicly encourage interactions and synergies between departments, institutes, and centers in ways that can advance the institution\u2019s mission to serve the public good? \u00a0Just as importantly, will academic leaders help IRISE recruit and retain–for the long haul–faculty that will help us look<\/i> a little more like the public and the city we seek to serve?<\/p>\n

The questions are many and the answers will come with time.\u00a0 We\u2019ll be keeping tabs here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In previous posts I\u2019ve addressed my university\u2019s interest in building partnerships with the city of Denver and some of the barriers that impede interdisciplinary teaching and research on campus. The prospects for better partnerships and interdisciplinary work on a host […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[6,18,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-denver-urbanism","category-intercultural-city","category-placemaking"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1H2bI-Ih","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2745"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2872,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2745\/revisions\/2872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}