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Liz Brown explains how to build an interdisciplinary course about global problem-solving that is anchored in business law yet draws substantially from many other fields.

Image courtesy of interviewee. March 18, 2024

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This video video discusses the importance of integrating legal studies into business education, emphasizing that law serves as the rules by which businesses operate. Understanding legal principles offers strategic advantages, helping business leaders spot and avoid potential issues throughout all stages of business management.

The author introduces a unique course called "Heroes and CEOs," created after observing a lack of interdisciplinary teaching at Bentley University. The course aims to break down silos in business education by allowing students to explore and solve complex problems while learning from experts across various fields. Structured in four parts, the course tackles topics such as microplastics in the ocean, climate justice, and gender equity, combining insights from marketing, biology, and environmental law.

Students also engage in independent projects on issues they care about, fostering enthusiasm and community. The course not only benefits students by equipping them with valuable problem-solving skills but also provides a collaborative experience for faculty across departments. The positive outcomes from the course have led to greater interest in law and local governance among students.

This video video concludes with a call for more interdisciplinary courses like "Heroes and CEOs," highlighting their flexibility and potential to enhance student education by focusing on complex, real-world problems. More collaborative and cross-disciplinary learning can fulfill the idealism students bring to their education while preparing them for future challenges.

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It's incredibly important

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to integrate legal studies in management

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and in a broad based business education,

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because if you think of business as a sport,

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law is the rules of that sport.

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So not only is it important to know how

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to conduct your business well

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and within the guidelines of the rules,

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but understanding law

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as a business leader gives you strategic advantages

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because you can spot issues, potential problems

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and avoid them if you know a little bit about the

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law as you're going along.

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And that applies from the time you start a business

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to your initial stages of forming it, to managing it,

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to really every stage of business leadership

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businesses benefit from a little fluency in law.

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Heroes and CEOs is a really unusual course,

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and I created it

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because I've been teaching at a business university at

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Bentley University for over a decade.

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And I saw that our students were learning important skills

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like law and management,

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but they were learning them in kind of a siloed way.

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And there was an opportunity, I thought, for our students

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to understand how each of the things that they're studying,

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each of the disciplines that they're studying

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could be brought together

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to provide a more effective education.

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So we have the building blocks in any university

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of all the skills that business leaders need,

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but how often do we actually give our students the

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opportunity to bring those together to solve problems,

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important problems while they're still undergraduates?

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It seems to me like we almost never do that.

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And so Heroes

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and CEOs is a course in which the students can

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learn from experts in 14 different fields instead of one,

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but in a really workable context

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that helps the students understand what's the practical

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value of each of these different fields that I'm studying

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and how might I be able to bring them together in my career.

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The course structure of Heroes

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and CEOs, is as unusual as its nature.

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We focus on complex problem solving.

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And so the way the course does that is in four parts.

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First, we, the students start with an introduction to

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what is complex problem solving, how do government

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and businesses work together, what are some

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of the problems we should solve?

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And we look at the UN sustainable development goals

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and we start out with a general sort of overview

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of problem solving to begin with.

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And then that's the, that's the first part.

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And then we move into, the second, third,

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and fourth parts which focus on discreet

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really difficult problems or wicked

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Problems as we call them.

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And anytime this course is run,

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those specific problems could change.

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For the first iteration of our course, I chose

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three problems that were,

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microplastics in the ocean was one of them.

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And then, climate justice, how do we not

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deal with climate change in a broad sense?

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But the question of, of equity

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and who's affected by climate change and then gender equity.

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So those are our three topics, our three wicked problems

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that we focused on For each of those problems,

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microplastics, climate justice, gender equity,

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I brought in experts from three different fields

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to talk to the students.

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And at the end of each of those sections at the end

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of the microplastics in the ocean section, for example,

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students wrote papers describing

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how those three different fields might work together

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to provide a complimentary

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and better creative solution

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to the problem than any one field alone.

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At the same time, the students

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who are throughout the course working on a problem

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of their own, a problem that mattered to them,

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I had chosen three problems.

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I wanted my students to feel invested as well.

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So I asked them

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to have their own independent throughline project

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that could be anything that they wanted.

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Some students chose fast fashion, some students chose,

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structural problems in their hometown.

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It just had to be something

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that the student really cared about.

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And so, for example, if I, if it might help

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to give an example of the, disciplines

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that work together.

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So in the microplastic section, for example, I had,

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I brought in someone from marketing who could talk about

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how products are, are marketed

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and how, why it's important to design sustainable packaging

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and what are the obstacles to doing

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that from a marketing perspective.

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I also brought in a biologist, a marine biologist,

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to talk about how plastics function in the ocean

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and how they affect wildlife.

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And then as our third discipline, I brought in somebody

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who is knowledgeable about environmental law,

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and we talked about how regulation might provide an

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important part of the answer.

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So the underlying concept of heroes

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and CEOs is

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that no single discipline has a monopoly on the value in

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complex problem solving.

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And to be a really effective problem solver, leaders need

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to be able to use disciplines together.

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Heroes and CEOs is a, is a, an exercise in doing just that.

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The minute you graduate with a degree, you are

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released from the structure

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Of English courses and government courses and history

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and marketing and finance

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and all the different disciplines

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that universities are built around.

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You just get released into the world

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with its complex problems

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and its lack of disciplinary labels.

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So in order to take on problems effectively, it's important

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to be able to think beyond those course labels,

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beyond those department names

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and to think about what are the partnerships,

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what are the synergies, what are the differences between

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how different experts tend to think of problems.

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A really effective leader,

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the most effective leaders will be able to understand

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how a broad range

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of disciplines could be brought together most effectively.

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So wicked problem solving courses are important

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because they provide training

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to take on the truly important work

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that business leaders need to do in the world,

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not just in leading their businesses,

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but in promoting social change and promoting local change

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and dealing with bigger problems in.

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And whether that's something that they do as part

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of their professional lives or whether

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that's something they do in their personal lives as part

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of the community, those are really important skills to have.

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So problem solving courses

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that bring together multiple disciplines

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provide an excellent training ground for

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what happens the minute after our students leave our campus.

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The impact of these courses has been tremendous.

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Uh, starting from the students' experience in the courses,

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my students first took Heroes

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and CEOs during the pandemic when it was really hard

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to get students excited about doing an online course.

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I have never had more enthusiastic students than we did

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during Heroes and CEOs

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because I think students are really hungry

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to make those connections and to meet more faculty.

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When I was bringing in a different faculty member every week

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to talk about a different discipline, that meant

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that my students were getting to, to form relationships

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with a broader range of faculty.

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They were getting introduced to fields

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of study they might never have encountered

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because they maybe didn't wanna invest a whole semester

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in a management class or in a sociology class.

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But here in this course, they got a little taster,

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a little sample of many different disciplines,

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but in the context of something

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that was gonna be really beneficial to them in the end.

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So for the students, they formed a tight community.

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They were enthusiastic about the skills

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they developed in the course.

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It felt useful to them in a way

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that students are really hungry for,

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and it gave them a way to act on their idealism.

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And I think it's really important as university faculty,

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that we do what we can to preserve the save the world

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ethos that so many of our students come into our, our

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Institutions with.

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And so often it's kind of dimmed

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by the time they're leaving.

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So courses like this help not only preserve,

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but make practical that idealism, you know, they help put

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that, those noble goals into practice.

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I think our students were excited about that.

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It was also beneficial for the faculty

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because I went into this course thinking, I'm gonna have

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to ask for favors from all of my colleagues

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to come in and teach this course.

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No one's gonna wanna do it.

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But without exception, all of the faculty members

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that I asked were excited to do it

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because they got to work across department lines with people

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that they really enjoyed meeting,

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but wouldn't necessarily meet in the, the silos

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or the sort of the rigid structures,

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the departmental meetings that we tend to have

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that keep us separate from each other.

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So it was a great, professional experience

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for the faculty as well.

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And we were all really proud

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that we were helping our students build these important

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skills in terms of what's gonna happen in the future

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for the students in the course.

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We're still seeing that.

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I've had some of the students from Heroes

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and CEOs first round decide that they wanted

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to apply to law school.

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I've had some students from that first round decide

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that they'd like to get more involved in local government.

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So these are great things and I think as the years go on

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and we repeat heroes

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and CEOs, we're gonna see a greater range of positive,

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outcomes as a result of courses like this.

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The conclusions from this work are that

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there should be more courses like Heroes and CEOs

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and there can be there, it, there is a, a structure in place

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that can be adjusted any number of ways.

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I've set up a course shell that has

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three problem solving components.

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There could be two, there could be four.

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I look forward to seeing

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how other people are using this kind of structure

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and running with it in other institutions.

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What disciplines you invite to the party totally depends on

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what disciplines you have at your institution

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and that you wanna highlight what problems you wanna solve.

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That depends in part on, again, who you wanna invite

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to the party, what disciplines you wanna include.

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But there's a tremendous range of flexibility.

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So as long as we can get past the administrative hassle

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of, you know, well, you're not gonna get credit

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for teaching this course and think instead about the

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overwhelming benefits to the student.

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If we run more multiple multidisciplinary,

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wicked problem solving courses like this,

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I think there's infinite potential

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to have many more interdisciplinary courses like this

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that are fun and beneficial.

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And who doesn't want that.

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