...BUT what if I want to STAY in my little box of soft feathers?

A colleague of mine is taking advantage of Purdue's Faculty Program of Study in a Second Discipline. It allows a few faculty some modest release time and supply and expense funds to pursue further knowledge and expertise in a second discipline.

The program is not well known or talked about much. In spite of rhetoric from administrators about inter- and multidisciplinary research, and the genuine desire of faculty to get out of our departmental "silos," many of us are too chicken to do it. Tenure and promotion aim one toward specialization, as does merit pay review. But from the folks I have spoken to about this program, it is well worth the effort they took to climb out of their nests.