Breaking Through the Silos: Collaboration that Supports Instruction

Eric Machan Howd and Anne Larrivee

Introduction

Academic silos is not an uncommon term. In fact, a 2016 Google search produced more than

6,000 results linked to this term. Although academic silos are pervasive across various campus units, there

are many examples of academic collaboration. Research on academic collaboration has highlighted its

role in student success,1 policy and funding,2 and a range of other outcomes. Collaborative partnerships

diversify the delivery of skills and knowledge and deter the duplication of similar services. Collaboration

provides opportunities to break down silos and gives strength to educational initiatives that benefit from

an additional skillset.

The benefits of academic collaboration have been widely studied, but few studies have focused

on collaboration across campus units. A literature review finds that while there have been several studies

focused on the collaborative benefits between academia and industry,3 or scholarly collaboration to

promote publications,4 it is difficult to find studies that proclaim the significance of collaborative

knowledge sharing activities among academic departments and units. The value of knowledge sharing

deserves some attention. Van den Brink’s research5 found that knowledge sharing encourages faculty to

trust one another, work together, share ideas, and engage in discussions, which thus generate new

knowledge. Tan6 wanted to explore the role of knowledge management and how to encourage the positive

outcomes of knowledge sharing. In her study, Tan found that most faculty are influenced by trust,

organizational rewards, and organizational culture. Many times, these influential factors are generated by

administrators but can also be created by a motivated team of campus staff from different departments

with similar interests. This chapter seeks to explore how multi-departmental collaboration, especially

among departments with similar instructional interests, such as the Libraries and the Center for Learning
and Teaching, encourages positive communication that shapes departmental networking and information

gathering.

While many departments on campus focus their attention on the instructional needs of students,

there are fewer that attend to the instructional needs of faculty and staff. The Libraries and the Center for

Learning and Teaching are two of the primary departments on campus that address these instructional

needs, but there are many others that also have a vested interest in faculty support. With these common

interests in mind, it makes sense for certain departments to share knowledge and collaborate. The

question then becomes, how? How can librarians, instructional designers, and a variety of other support

staff break through the silos that prevent collaboration? Although there are many possibilities, this chapter

will present some ideas of how the collaboration between a librarian and an instructional designer created

an instructional network that provided a space for sharing ideas and establishing connections.

Institutional setting

These collaborative interactions took place at Binghamton University, one of the four doctoral-

granting State Universities of New York (SUNY). Binghamton is the smallest of the four, situated on a

930-acre campus with a population of more than 16,000 students and 500-plus faculty, with a student-to-

faculty ratio of twenty to one.7 There is a total of seven schools, and each is encouraged to promote five

different Transdisciplinary Areas of Excellence.8 These transdisciplinary areas bring together faculty from

a variety of departments to emphasize the value of collaborative scholarship at Binghamton University.

Despite efforts to emphasize the value of knowledge sharing, academic silos still exist.

There are twelve different academic units at Binghamton, including the seven academic schools,

as well as the the Graduate School, the Center for Learning and Teaching, Continuing and Professional

Education, Office of the Provost, and the University Libraries. Aside from the academic units, there are

also departments affiliated with student life, athletics, communications, and research. Out of the twelve

academic units listed, the University Libraries and the Center for Learning and Teaching cater most

closely to faculty’s instructional needs, but other examples could also include the University Center for
Training and Development, Educational Communications Center, the Center for Civic Engagement,

International Student and Scholar Services, Fleishman Center for Career and Professional Development,

and the Services for Students with Disabilities Office.

In the Center for Learning and Teaching, there are three instructional designers, as well as two

directors and a few additional staff. The Center for Learning and Teaching also oversees the Educational

Communications Center and the University Tutoring Services. Their instructional design services provide

course consultations, course observations, and specialized event planning that enhances the way students

learn and how instructors teach. In addition to their services, they offer a range of resources for teaching,

learning, and technology.

In the Libraries, there are approximately twenty librarians and three University Libraries.

Librarians at Binghamton hold faculty status and work toward the libraries’ mission to “bring people and

information together utilizing value-added local initiatives to enhance learning, teaching, and research in

ways that achieve national and international acclaim, while strategically advancing [the] University’s

mission and vision.” 9 The libraries frequently collaborate with other departments on planned activities,

but these partnerships tend to be limited to one-time or once-per-semester activities.

Problem to be addressed

In 2013, the Center for Learning and Teaching at Binghamton University went through a major

restructuring in response to University-wide Road Map planning. Prior to 2013, the Center existed along

with the Institute for Student Centered Learning (ISCL) and primarily offered some teaching resources

and a May workshop for faculty to gather and share teaching pedagogies and practices. As part of the

Road Map process, the University determined that the Center for Learning and Teaching restructure and

increase its impact on campus. This prompted an official re-organization and the hire of the University’s

first full-time instructional designer. Part of that instructional designer’s first steps was to take an

inventory of where faculty support was happening on campus and gather representatives from these areas
to meet and share what they do, how they work with faculty, as well as to discuss how a more cross-

matrix organization of faculty support on campus could benefit everyone.

Internally, many of the University’s departments that support faculty tend to function in

traditional silos, focusing on specific clientele and users, not necessarily by choice, but by academic habit.

However, many departments have been collaborating more and more outside of their silos to effect

greater change.

Although there are many creative and knowledgeable people on university campuses, the

tradition of organizational silos on large campuses often prevents the intersection of people from different

departments to gather and exchange ideas. This type of organizational structure steers faculty and staff

from various departments to focus only on reaching out to their specific clientele and keeping resources

within the department.

Many business and educational researchers have written about the challenges that silo-based

structures present to an organization. One such educational researcher, Dr. George Kuh, focused on the

benefits of breaking silos in his 1996 article on Guiding Principles for Creating Seamless Learning

Environments for Undergraduates by presenting the concepts of vertical and horizontal organizational

structures, where vertical structures equate to the concept of silos. Keeling, Underhile, and Wall

paraphrase this article by saying:

The frequent and increasingly predictable accusation that institutions of higher education

operate in “silos” is based on the primarily vertical organization of those institutions; their

various schools, colleges, business operations, student support services, real estate and

economic development arms, foundations, and athletic programs operate in parallel with one

another, more focused on promoting their own internal goals and objectives than on adhering

to, elucidating, or accomplishing broader institutional purposes.10

Binghamton University is no exception to this statement. In order for any groups with shared

goals and procedures to function in a cohesive way, walls must be broken down. The concept of

collaboration is broad; it can refer to partnerships between co-workers, across departments, or even across