Rethinking the role of universities in preparing undergraduates for interprofessional practice

Teacher Education Quarterly, Fall 1999 by Alva, Sylvia Alatorre, Kim-Goh, Mikyong

Proposals to link health and social services to schools are increasingly at the forefront of the policy agenda for school-age children. Colleges and universities are not immune to these changes. There is a perception that postsecondary institutions are insular and that they are not doing enough to solve society's economic and social ills. Indeed, colleges and universities are under ever-mounting pressure from their constituents to be relevant and responsive to the needs of the students they prepare.

Educational institutions no longer have the luxury of being bystanders in a time of increasing public scrutiny. Indeed, the heightened level of interest and activity in school-linked services challenges postsecondary institutions to prepare prospective teachers with the skills, competencies, and experiences to collaborate in efforts to deliver school-linked health and social services to children and their families. Our premise is that proposals to link schools with a myriad of support programs and services may, to a large extent, hinge on colleges and universities rethinking their role in preparing undergraduates for integrated practice (Lawson & Hooper-Briar, 1994).

Rationale for Preparing Prospective Teachers for Integrated Services

In many school districts, students and their families are provided a variety of support services. It is not uncommon for schools to have programs that provide nutrition, after-school care, counseling, tutoring, vaccinations, dental care, etc. However, beyond simply providing a wide array of services to children and families, what is needed is an integration of these services.

In an integrated services approach, services are provided in a coordinated manner to children and families through collaboratives, which can include teachers, health care providers, counselors,juvenile justice and law enforcement, and social workers. These collaboratives must work in a coordinated manner to address the unique needs of children in a particular community. Because each of these professions has its own purview and specialized services, an integration services perspective challenges us to rethink not only bow services are provided but, central to this paper, how we prepare preprofessional students to contribute to the development and implementation of school- and community-based collaboratives.

Problems with the Current Curriculum

Too often undergraduate students experience the college curriculum as fragmented. "Undergraduate education strikes students as a bewildering introduction to diversity: different bodies of knowledge, modes of inquiry, ways of knowing, historical periods, and cultures" (Association of American Colleges, 1994, p. 12). Separate courses and academic disciplines typically stress particular content and approaches rather than searching for commonalties or making connections between facts. Isolated disciplinary orientations rarely prepare students and faculty to engage in meaningful dialogue across disciplinary boundaries.

The New England Resource Center for Higher Education conducted an extensive study of colleges and universities that have attempted to redesign their general education curriculum in recent years. In a telephone survey with faculty and administrators in 71 colleges and universities, they found that faculty were very concerned about "student overspecialization in professional studies" (Kanter, Gamson, & London, 1997, p. 30).

The tension between offering students the "big picture" versus the theories, approaches, and skills of particular disciplines has been at the root of heated debates on many college campuses. In terms of interprofessional education and training, it is clear that undergraduate students need to be given a context and framework for critique of work in a variety of disciplines to understand both the power and limitations of disciplinary perspectives. Teachers, social workers, nurses, counselors, and child developmentalists all have a unique perspective in how they define and address the needs of children and families. If the goal of interprofessional practice is to have teachers and other professionals see the problems of children and families from a holistic perspective, preprofessional students must be given the opportunities to examine the condition of children and families from a variety of disciplinary frames.

Curricular Experimentation

Interdisciplinary courses can be a valuable way to pursue educational coherence. Interdisciplinary courses "express the interconnectedness of knowledge by presenting multiple perspectives on issues, concepts, texts, and "real world" problems" (Association of American Colleges, 1994, p. 13). At California State University, Fullerton, a school-wide course on the conditions of children and families in Orange County was developed. The "Annual Report on the Condition of Children in Orange County," a community report compiled by the United Way of Orange County, the County of Orange, and the Center for Collaboration for Children at California State University, Fullerton, was used as the framework of this course. The annual community report card measures and analyzes 35 statistical indicators. It provides a snapshot of the conditions of children in four areas: (a) health, (b) educational achievement, (c) economic well being, and (d) safety of home and communities.