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In addition to satisfying all general requirements for graduation from New College, Interdisciplinary Studies students must design, with their advisers, an individual Interdisciplinary Studies Program which employs two or more disciplines from different areas and explores some discrete topic, theme or problem.

Students and advisers should design Interdisciplinary Programs during the second semester of the sophomore year and submit them for approval. An individual program design should include a statement of its focus and specify 40 s.h. of study including a 4 s.h. Senior Project as the culminating work in the program. No more than 16 of these 40 s.h. may be in basic or general courses or projects. New College and other University liberal arts courses may be used in the design of Interdisciplinary Programs. Through their total B.A. programs, Interdisciplinary Studies students must satisfactorily complete a minimum of 8 s.h. each in Creative Studies, Humanities, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences in addition to 4 s.h. of Quantitative Thinking (QT) courses.

A 4 s.h. Upper-Level Interdisciplinary Studies area seminar must be completed as required by New College. This requirement is intended to help the student assess the impact on his/her interdisciplinary focus of developments since, roughly, 1825, and to help the student refine research and writing skills. Interdisciplinary Studies students may satisfy this requirement in one of several ways.

1. A student with a Human Development Focus may take the Special Seminar in Human Development or arrange with his/her adviser for an appropriate alternative.
2. A student with an International Studies Focus may take the Upper Level Seminar in International Studies or arrange with his/her adviser for an appropriate alternative.
3. With the approval of the adviser, a student may select an appropriate upper-level seminar in the Humanities, Social Sciences, Natural Sciences or program focus within Interdisciplinary Studies.
4. With the approval of the adviser, a student may complete a 4 s.h. Individual Project either tracing the impact of ideas and/or events in the past 150 years on the student’s focal concern, or analyzing the antecedents and consequences of a significant development directly related to that concern.

Each student’s program must culminate in a Senior Project, normally a research paper, in which at least two disciplines from two different areas are actively employed. Of necessity, then, Interdisciplinary Studies Senior Projects must have at least two faculty sponsors: a faculty supervisor from the primary discipline and a consultant or consultants from the other discipline(s).

In addition to individual, student-designed Interdisciplinary Studies Programs, New College offers six specific programs within Interdisciplinary Studies. See the following programs for more information.

American Civilization Focus

Communication and Society Focus

Family Studies Focus
Instructor Mason-Egan, Adviser

Human Development Focus

International Studies Focus
Associate Professor Longmire, Adviser

Women’s Studies Focus
Associate Professor Longmire, Adviser

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