Theme 5: Significant real and perceived barriers to collaboration exist. The
researcher sought to gain understanding from faculty members what they felt were the
most significant barriers to collaboration.
Barrier to collaboration: Time. The overwhelming first response to this question
during interviews was the constraints of time. Eric Booher assessed the situation, “I
wonder if it is as simple as we teach too damn much, you know, and I just [inaudible]
time to walk next door to figure out that. Might be as simple as that.” Similar
observations came from Todd Collins,
I’d say the biggest barrier is also our advantage and that’s that we’re small.
Because we’re a small college we all wear a lot of hats, we all have a lot of
responsibilities, and finding the time to carve out an intentional collaboration – I
mean it can be done but you’ve got a lot of other time commitments pulling on
you.