Building cross-disciplinary teams in higher education institutions

The industrial workplace models of team dynamics tend to misrepresent the character of collaborative activities and professional relationships in educational communities. An alternative model is suggested of self-directed, informal teams of educators in an integrated campus creating academic work units with all the characteristics of positive team formations in business and industry, and the additional qualities of reciprocity and kindness found in friendship circles. A campus in a system of for-profit post-secondary DeVry Institutes is employed as an example of the benefits of organizing physical space of educational activities in an integrated manner. Educators, support staff and technical resources are brought together across the range of the institution's educational offerings, creating by the campus as open space the conditions for successful informal teams in institutions of higher learning.