摘要：These questions were posed by a food science professor who incorporates group assignments and laboratories into her courses in order for students to learn disciplinary content and to prepare them for professional practice. The query is similar to those of other faculty members who participated in the study reported here: disciplinary faculty members who carefully and deliberately integrated communication activities into their classes but whose primary expertise lay in their own discipline rather than in the discipline of communication studies, of which I am a part. My initial response to the professor’s question was that among the decisions she would make as she developed the group activity, the number of students assigned to each group would not be the most pressing. Before I responded, however, there were two decisions I needed to make: first, whether to respond to her query or direct her to what I felt were more pressing group issues; and second, the best way to initiate whichever group issue I would decide to tackle first. I see similar dilemmas in the writing across the curriculum (WAC) literature where, for example, Cole (2014) points out that for WAC consultants, grammar is only a very small piece of the pie, while for disciplinary faculty members, it appears to be a very large piece. The issues in both of these scenarios are first, whether it is advisable to respond to priorities set by disciplinary faculty members or steer them to what the cross-curricular consultant views as more pressing priorities; and second, determining the best approach to managing the interaction. The present discussion is based on the assumption that neither cross-curricular consultants nor disciplinaryCross-Curricular Consulting 57faculty members have sufficient knowledge to remedy all disciplinary dilemmas. They must work together, discovering the assumptions that drive each, questioning the basis of those assumptions, and eventually arriving at a resolution based on the expertise each group brings to the table. In the examples given, both parties could clarify their assumptions about the role of issues important to them (such as grammar or group size) to the benefit of the other. The cross-curricular consultant might learn that what seems to him or her to be an inconsequential disciplinary issue assumes an important place in preparing students for professional practice. Similarly, the disciplinary faculty has an opportunity to learn that writing is more than grammar or that group work is more than seating individuals around a table.
