The danger is in creating a generalist who may not be able to contribute to an interdisciplinary team as much as a specialist in a single area, with a working knowledge of the other areas. Here the immediate response might be for a group of faculty to create a center or institute. An examination of the Biosciences and Biotechnology area reveals that this is indeed the case. These are officially listed by the University in the Gateways of Opportunity Brochure. All of these Centers have some overlap and all of these Centers require University support.
Success requires resources and seed funds.
The natural assumption is that if VT has identified an interdisciplinary area as a cross-cutting initiative, that the opportunity and demand for outreach activities such as professional education, technical assistance, economic development, and executive programs is high. Since the initiatives were established, some steps have been taken to move the University forward in these directions. Each of these initiatives could represent a major undertaking by the University and could consume a major percentage of the University's resources. This note provides a partial list of questions. The issue of cross-cutting initiatives and their implementation is complex and will raise some fundamental organizational issues for Virginia Tech.