Since 1990, the Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences Program has grown from twelve to thirty-six faculty members, from one to seven staff members, and from two to nine undergraduate degree options. During Autumn Quarter 1990, we educated eighty-six undergraduate students; during Spring Quarter 2006, we taught nearly five hundred, including forty-five graduate students. In 2001, we began to offer a Master of Arts in Policy Studies and undergraduate minors in Human Rights and Policy Studies. In 2008, we will launch our second graduate program, a Master of Arts in Cultural Studies. Many of our students take the Education Program's minor in preparation for a Teacher Certification. Previously an upper-division and graduate program, we began in 2006 to offer lower-division curricula and to contribute to UWB frosh program, the Center for University Studies and Programs (CUSP). And we are currently in the midst of generating new interdisciplinary degree options.
Though unique in many ways, this program history mirrors national and international shifts in the landscape of higher education since 1990. Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences is one of a generation of academic programs that are seeking to reconfigure the academy, making way for a plurality of scholarly approaches and modes of inquiry. Since 1990, the IAS faculty has purposefully carved out intellectual territory that honors disciplinary perspectives and methodologies, while also valuing research and teaching that seeks integration across traditional academic fields. This misson of integrative scholarship and teaching provides not so much the connective tissue between the bones of the program as the breaths between its movements. We are driven to innovate by our dedication to reshaping education in ways that are responsive to the practical challenges faced by our students and communities, not just the professional demands of the academy.
At the undergraduate level, our curriculum promotes problem-based learning in and across our degree options, starting with our Program Core Course, BIS 300: Interdisciplinary Inquiry, and culminating in our Senior Seminars. We encourage student engagement with and reflection on their learning through portfolio-based methods of assessment, for both students and the program as a whole. Faculty and students explore areas of knowledge together as they investigate the academic and practical edges of knowledge fields. We foster in our students curiosity, creativity, and critical reasoning. We prepare our students for the world of work and further academic training in graduate and professional studies through opportunities in community-based learning, internships, and undergraduate research.
At the graduate level, our Master of Arts in Policy Studies takes an interdisciplinary and collaborative approach to research and engagement in local, state, and national policy in arenas ranging from environment and energy to technology and education to labor and human rights. Through evening seminars in policy studies, directed readings, internship opportunities, and field research, students prepare for entry into educational and professional fields as policy analysts, policy researchers, and agents of social change. Beginning in 2008, our Master of Arts in Cultural Studies will prepare students for similar career and educational opportunities in fields that engage with arts and cultural practices and policies.
There is a lot going on in IAS, so stay tuned. Our history is in the making.
