Summary: This article reveals how faculty view support for interdisciplinary scholarship at Emory. It is based on analysis of a study of faculty life in which IR interviewed seventy-five faculty members, randomly selected from all the university's schools and disciplines, between 2000 and 2002 at different stages in their academic careers. We found most participants agree that interdisciplinary scholarship is worthwhile and appears to be valued at the university and in their departments; however, administrative and cultural barriers to collaboration remain strong, despite the general shift to embrace more interdisciplinary work. Further, junior and senior faculty's perceptions differ. Most untenured junior faculty see interdisciplinary research as a future goal and express the importance of establishing themselves in their own fields to meet tenure and promotion requirements before doing collaborative work with colleagues from other disciplines. Many participants, particularly senior faculty, cite "lack of time" as the main barrier to interdisciplinary scholarship. Nevertheless, over half the senior faculty say the benefits of interdisciplinary work, such as intellectual stimulation, outweigh the challenges The article highlights some of the barriers and also the benefits of interdisciplinary collaboration that faculty most often cited. Several recommendations based on participants' suggestions for strengthening interdisciplinary scholarship are offered.

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