The complexities of environmental challenges stress our understandings because current theory and research tools are often too discipline-bound to permit holistic assessment of the interrelationships, interfaces, and overlaps that exist in the environment. Too often, teams of talented faculty members from a number of departments come together to apply for a grant or to establish a new footprint and discover that the transaction costs of understanding one another and believing in each other's theories are challenging, to say the least. In addition to the difficulties for faculty members, there is the profound challenge for administrators. Douglas J. Crawford-Brown, Director of the Carolina Environmental Program at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, admits that “deans often fight such programs because they often report to a provost rather than being ruled by those deans.” Dr. Crawford-Brown points out that these crossdisciplinary programs upset the balance of power in the university system (Crawford-Brown, 2005). Needs for broader understandings, coupled with political realities, challenge environmental programs nationwide.