Stewarding the Discipline With Cross-Boundary Leadership

Proposals to prepare disciplinary stewards and optimize the conditions for collective stewardship can be framed in two ways. The dominant frame emphasizes disciplinary caretaking and lends comparatively less attention to reform and transformation. A second frame is grounded in the social ecology of particular disciplines, their fast-changing university homes, and society’s complex needs, problems, and opportunities, especially those that no longer fit inside the long-standing boundaries of particular disciplines and their specialties. Reformist and transformative stewardship in this second frame prioritizes the development of adaptive, connected disciplines characterized by new boundaries and bridging mechanisms for interdisciplinary research, teaching, and outreach/engagement. This frame also provides the opportunity to explore the difference between an academic discipline and a helping discipline. Questions remain about how leaders will persuade, support, and reward career-oriented, specialized faculty members to engage in all such acts of stewardship for Kinesiology alongside their customary concern for their respective sub-disciplines.