Who Might be Interested In this Curriculum?

1. (6) PhD Curriculum for
Discipline-Independent-Transdisciplinarity
Achieving Breadth and Depth of Understanding
Vincent Vesterby
Conference theme: Educating the next generation

2. Who Might be Interested In this Curriculum?
People seeking a curriculum leading to a doctoral degree in
modern-generalist-discipline-independent-transdisciplinarity.
Multidisciplinary specialists seeking advanced transdisciplinary
skills and mindset.
Vincent Vesterby 2Transdisciplinarity PhD

3. Curriculum Content ...1
There are two main areas of study in the curriculum.
1.Modern-generalist-discipline-independent-transdisciplinary-
understanding.
2.Supplementary courses: mathematics, expository writing,
foreign language, literature, and history.
Achieving transdisciplinary understanding has two parts.
1.Foundations of Discipline-Independent-Transdisciplinarity.
2.Guided advanced independent study, which involves auditing
as broad a selection of science, math, and social studies courses
as possible.
Vincent Vesterby 3Transdisciplinarity PhD

4. Curriculum Content ...2
When auditing courses the students would not do the
assignments or take the tests.
Instead they would:
•Mine the course material, the text, and the lectures, for general-
factors.
•Learn to view the course material by way of patterns-of-
organization, structural-logic, and development.
•Write descriptions of the specific forms the general-factors
manifest in the subject area of each discipline.
•Compose a summary of the subject area of the discipline.
•Write a report discussing the integration of the subject area of the
discipline with the subject areas of other interrelated disciplines.
Vincent Vesterby Transdisciplinarity PhD 4

5. Curriculum Content ...3
Each of the supplementary courses plays a supportive role for
discipline-independent-transdisciplinary-understanding.
Mathematics courses will be audited.
• The students will analyze the math itself, discovering at
the level of structural-logic how and why mathematical
relations work.
• The goal is to develop enough understanding of math to
be able to find and discuss general-factors occurring
therein.
• This level of insight is expected to enable graduates to
understand the use of math in the various disciplines.
5Vincent Vesterby Transdisciplinarity PhD

6. Curriculum Content ...4
One foreign language is required.
• This should be a major world language in which science is
published and which is widely used in systems science.
• By graduation the students should have sufficient
command in listening, speaking, reading, and writing in
their foreign language to successfully attend a conference
in that language.
6Vincent Vesterby Transdisciplinarity PhD

7. Curriculum Content ...5
 This curriculum requires expository writing that is descriptive
in nature.
• Definitions of terms are based solely on descriptions of
intrinsic significant aspects of the reality referents of the
terms.
• Descriptive writing should describe things
developmentally from the simple to the complex, from
what goes before to what follows, from the lower levels to
the higher levels.
• Students will integrate the general-factors they have
found in the audited classes into their progressively
growing universal-conceptual-model.
7Vincent Vesterby Transdisciplinarity PhD

8. The mode of discipline-independent-transdisciplinarity is based
on understanding rather than on quantity of memorized
knowledge.
As the students audit a diversity of classes they create within
their mind their own universal-conceptual-model that is based
on understanding.
The extent of this understanding provides a universal framework
on which to add and organize the details of various specific
situations.
Those details are accessed as needed from a wide variety of data
sources, and from consultation with disciplinary experts.
8Vincent Vesterby Transdisciplinarity PhD

9. Using Discipline-Independent-Transdisciplinarity
...2
This curriculum provides the ability to approach any system and
analyze it for the general-factors of which it is composed, to map
its structure and processes, and to provide guidance for its
management.
9Vincent Vesterby Transdisciplinarity PhD

10. Using Discipline-Independent-Transdisciplinarity
...2
This curriculum provides the ability to approach any system and
analyze it for the general-factors of which it is composed, to map
its structure and processes, and to provide guidance for its
management.
9Vincent Vesterby Transdisciplinarity PhD