The Center for Interdisciplinary Research, Collaboration, Learning, and Engagement (CIRCLE) will officially launch on October 18, 2023, with a celebration at the MSU Museum. This innovative center aims to foster interdisciplinary collaboration across teaching, scholarship, and engagement, providing valuable training, support, facilitation, and evaluation services.

The center will build community for interdisciplinary scholars whose work spans traditional disciplinary boundaries as well as scholars who wish to collaborate across disciplines. CIRCLE’s leadership team, already known for their interdisciplinary teaching and scholarship, will spearhead CIRCLE’s research agenda to investigate the nature, practice, and evaluation of interdisciplinarity.

“Interdisciplinary collaboration takes training and support to thrive, whether it takes the form of research, teaching, or engagement. And interdisciplinary scholars and educators deserve to work within a thriving community of peers who understand what it means to work across big boundaries. We built CIRCLE to create a home for that community and the structures necessary to build sustained, rich collaborations across MSU,” said Megan Halpern, the inaugural director of CIRCLE.

The MSU Museum will host a celebration on October 18 at 4:00PM. Guests must be over 21 and must register in advance.

CIRCLE is unique in its broad definition of interdisciplinary activities as well as its commitment to scholarship on the nature of interdisciplinarity. Inaugural programming includes an interdisciplinary workshop series, a seed grant program, a residency for an MSU faculty member, and series of mixers and informal events to help build community for students, scholars, and educators focused on interdisciplinarity.

This innovative hub builds upon the previous successes of the Center for Interdisciplinarity (C4I) and the Science + Society @ State (S3) seed grant program, both of which served interdisciplinary collaborations at MSU and beyond.

CIRCLE is supported by Lyman Briggs College, The College of Arts and Letters, The Office of Research and Innovation, The Office of the Provost, The College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, The Center for Teaching and Learning Innovation, and the MSU Museum.

Join us on October 18, 2023, at the MSU Museum to celebrate the launch of CIRCLE and embark on a journey into the exciting world of interdisciplinarity.

This story originally appeared on the MSU Museum website.