The Impact of Policy on Interdisciplinary Graduate Education at Iowa State University

Iowa State, like most other universities, is administratively structured with departments reporting to academic colleges. Faculty appointments are in departments. Graduate programs that grant advanced degrees are called graduate majors. Most graduate majors draw their faculty from a single department; but, at Iowa State, twenty-two programs draw faculty from multiple departments. These are designated “interdepartmental majors.” Six interdepartmental majors report to an academic college, one to a department, and fifteen to the Graduate College.