Bachelor of Arts [B.A] [Interdisciplinary Studies] From University of Maryland Baltimore County

In 1979, Option II was renamed Interdisciplinary Studies, to better reflect the nature of the major. A growing national movement toward multidisciplinary approaches to learning and problem solving demanded a coherent intellectual framework with which to integrate insights from different disciplines ? a scholarship of interdisciplinarity. One of the first directors of Interdisciplinary Studies, Dr. Thomas Benson, served as president of the Association for Integrative Studies (AIS), and authored ?Five Arguments Against Interdisciplinary Studies? (Issues in Integrative Studies 1 (1982) 38-48). The article produced a flurry of responses and helped to advance the national dialogue about interdisciplinarity and its role in academe. UMBC continued its presence on the national scene in 1987 when Director Slobodan Petrovich was elected to the AIS Board and then as president in 1991-1992.In 2002, Patricia La Noue was appointed director and has led the program in raising its visibility on campus through such university wide programming as the Mosaic Roundtables, the Petrovich Lectures, the I-Team, the International and Global Studies initiative. Within the INDS program, Director La Noue introduced the requirement of a Capstone Research Presentation from all graduating seniors, and a core curriculum of courses to provide a consistent ?backbone? of interdisciplinary scholarship to each individualized major.