University of Texas at Austin
AC-10: Support for Research

The Bridging Disciplines-Environment Program. One of the goals of the BDP is to help students make their education fit their individual interests and goals. BDP advisors help students find courses, research opportunities, and internship experiences that complement their majors, while also supporting them in developing knowledge and experience they would not otherwise find within their degree plans. The Environment BDP gives students the opportunity to explore a variety of disciplinary approaches to environmental processes and contemporary environmental issues. By bringing together courses in natural sciences, social sciences, design disciplines, and the humanities, this program affords a complex understanding of how the diverse parts of Earth’s environment interact. A Geology major might choose to deepen an appreciation of human-environment interactions with a selection of Government, History, and Geography courses in Liberal Arts, while a Journalism major might use Natural Science courses to develop an understanding of the scientific method. Designed to complement a range of majors, the Environment BDP prepares students to address environmental issues in careers as researchers, writers, policy makers, sustainable business leaders, and educators. An interdisciplinary panel of faculty with an interest in the environment helps students design individualized programs of study that complement their majors and interests, and they are instrumental in helping students find internships and opportunities to participate in faculty research.

UT Austin’s Sustainability Research Network is a group of directors, grant administrators, faculty and researchers from Organized Research Units and departments across campus that gathers every semester to strategically brainstorm opportunities for collaboration and increased communication around sustainability-research at the university. Additionally, the university's ongoing Sustainability Faculty Learning Community serves as a forum for faculty to network around shared teaching and research interests.

Current faculty tenure and promotion guidelines do not specifically define interdisciplinary research, and do not state a positive, or negative, position on such research.