The thesis of this essay is that interdisdplinary sudies hold special promise in achieving new scientific-technological breakthroughs and mapping more effective socio-economic, political, and cultural modes of interaction enhancing human flourishing. Universities are crucial to this endeavor in their multiple roles of teaching, learning, research, and service, educating youth and adults for meaningful careers, life, and participatory citizenship in a democracy. Higher education is, thus, a major transmission belt for culture. In the Third MilIennkim, interdisciplinary approaches to learning suggest new methodologies that seek dialogue and integration of research findings across the disciplines to overcome the compartmentalization of knowledge which hinders new discoveries in the natural sciences and "connecting-the-dots" in the social and behavioral sciences, while humanities are key to understanding the emotional, mental, and spiritual aspects of human beings. Redeeming the culture and educating the Selfie generation require the integrated knowledge and insights of all disciplines.

Interdisciplinary studies has grown significantly in the last 25 years. The reductionisms of secular modernism and postmodem relativism present an opportunity for an approach to interdisciplinary faith-learning integration that provides a unifying basis for research addressing major challenges. An approach developed at Oxford Graduate School offers promise for interdisciplinary studies comprehensive enough to bridge the three cultures of the natural, social, and humane sciences in the service of bettering the world. The Learning ... to Change the World methodology proceeds through seven stages: problem clarification, literature review, faith-learning integration, interdisciplinary research, contextualization, ethical/social leadership, and lifelong learning evaluation. Grounded in a Creation-Fall-Redemption-Consummation metaphysical worldview, it assumes a critical realist epistemology to engage real-world challenges. The process accommodates multiple research methods and aims for a redemptive-ethical transformation of social problems.