The Special Minor in Interdisciplinary
Studies is designed for undergraduate students
whose particular interests, background, or
professional objectives are not served by a
minor in a single discipline. The purpose of
this minor is to make available to students who
satisfy the requirements for the program the
opportunity to design, with faculty approval, a
flexible interdisciplinary adjunct to their
undergraduate curriculum. Admission to the
Special Minor is limited to students whose
individualized programs can be organized around
a special topic or a cross-disciplinary inquiry
that is original and involves work in more than
one department. Interested students should
contact the Coordinator of the Institute of
Interdisciplinary Studies (ITDS), who initiates
the appli-cation and screening process. The
Coordinator also helps each student identify a
faculty advisor from each of two departments to
serve as the student's academic advisory
committee.
PREREQUISITES TO APPLICATION
Applicants should have a grade point average
of at least 3.0.
(See also Expectations of the ITDS Committee,
p. 3, below)
REGULATIONS AND PROCEDURES IN BRIEF
In order to develop a Special Minor, you must
takes the following steps:
Step 1. Consult with the ITDS Coordinator
Step 2. Form a committee of faculty
advisors
Step 3. Complete an application, and
Step 4. Submit the application to the ITDS
Coordinator by a specified deadline. The
application will be evaluated by the ITDS
Committee and the Associate Vice President of
Academic Affairs. If the application is
approved, you may pursue your minor through to
completion.
REGULATIONS AND PROCEDURES IN FULL
The regulations and procedures pertaining to
the Special Minor are described in detail below.
You should be thoroughly acquainted with these
regulations and procedures and with the
expectations of the persons who approve the
minor. The minor consists of 20 units of course
work in two or more disciplines. Keep in mind
that your program of study must be truly
interdisciplinary; it may not be an individually
fashioned degree in any single existing
discipline. Course work should consist,
therefore, of an adequate and appropriate
distribution of courses in the disciplines
involved in your program.
STEP 1. CONSULT WITH THE ITDS COORDINATOR
1. Before developing an application, you must
consult with the Coordinator of
Inter-disciplinary Studies, who will initiate
the application and screening process and will
help you identify a faculty advisor from each of
two departments to serve as your academic
advisory committee.
STEP 2. FORM AN ACADEMIC ADVISORY
COMMITTEE
2. There must be at least two faculty
members, each from a different department or
program in which you wish to take courses, who
agree to constitute your academic advisory
committee and act as advisors for your program
of study. It is your responsibility to contact
your academic advisors to plan with them a
coherent original and feasible course of
study.
3. CHAIR OF THE ACADEMIC ADVISORY COMMITTEE.
One of the members of your com-mittee must agree
to be the chair of your committee and to advise
you on your course of study. It is strongly
recommended that you and the chair of your
prospective committee meet with the ITDS
Coordinator to discuss your proposal before the
completed application form and proposal are
submitted.
STEP 3. COMPLETE AN APPLICATION
4. In consultation with the ITDS Coordinator
and your committee, you must complete an
application. The requirements for the
application appear below in these guidelines.
When the application is completed, you must
submit it in duplicate to the ITDS Coordinator
by an application deadline.
5. THE STUDENT'S FILE. Upon receipt of your
completed application by the ITDS Co-ordinator,
a file is established in the Coordinator's
office. The file will contain, in addition to
the application, a copy of all documents, such
as memos, petitions, and letters, that are
related to your program.
STEP 4. SUBMIT YOUR APPLICATION FOR
REVIEW
6. APPLICATION DEADLINES. There are three
deadlines each semester for filing an
appli-cation for a Special Minor. The deadlines
for each semester are posted outside the office
of the ITDS Coordinator. You are urged to submit
your application by the first or second
deadline, so that if revision is required, the
application can still be acted on during the
semester in which you apply.
7. THE REVIEW PROCESS. Filing an application
with the ITDS Coordinator does not assure
acceptance of your Special Minor program. Each
proposal must be reviewed by the ITDS Committee.
After a program is reviewed, the Committee
conveys its recommendation to the student
through the ITDS Coordinator. The Committee may
recommend approval or conditional approval of
the application, may request that the
application be reworked and resubmitted, or may
reject the application. Applications approved by
the Committee must then be approved by the
Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs. If
the application is approved at both levels of
review, you may pursue the minor through to its
completion.
8. ATTENDING THE REVIEW. The chair of your
faculty committee is invited to the ITDS
Com-mittee meeting at which your application is
reviewed. Information regarding the date, time
and place of the ITDS Committee meetings can be
obtained from the ITDS Office.
OTHER FACTORS
9. DECLARING YOUR MINOR. To receive
administrative recognition of your minor, you
must fill out a Major/Minor Requirements form
for the minor, signed by the chair of your
committee and the Coordinator of ITDS, and
submit it at the time you apply for
graduation.
10. DISTRIBUTION OF THE APPROVED PROGRAM. In
addition to the Associate Vice President of
Academic Affairs and the ITDS Coordinator, you
and the chair of your Committee should have a
copy of your approved program.
11. CHANGES IN THE MINOR. Once your proposal
is approved, any changes in the curriculum must
be approved by the ITDS Coordinator and your
academic advisors. All changes should be made
through a letter of explanation that is signed
by your advisors and the ITDS Coordinator and is
placed in your file in the ITDS Office. If the
changes substantially alter the focus of your
program, they must also be approved by the ITDS
Committee.
12. ACADEMIC ADVISING. It is advisable that
you consult with the chair of your Committee at
the beginning of each semester until you
complete your minor. The ITDS Coordinator is
also available for advising.
EXPECTATIONS OF THE ITDS COMMITTEE
In its consideration of your application for
the Special Minor, the ITDS Committee will look
for evidence of your ability to pursue a
self-designed program to completion and of your
alertness to your major and other graduation
requirements. The Committee will look for such
evidence, not only in your rationale, but in the
following areas:
1. GPA. The GPA recommended for admission to
the Special Minor is 3.0. If your GPA is
slightly lower than 3.0, you should submit a
letter of recommendation and other supporting
material, such as mid-semester evaluations, to
support your proposal.
2. GE. At the time you apply for a Special
Minor, you should have completed at least half
of your GE requirements.
3. TOTAL NUMBER OF UNITS COMPLETED TOWARD
GRADUATION. Ideally, you should begin your
Special Minor early enough in your university
career that you can graduate without an excess
of units, i.e., with more than the 124 units
required for graduation. Although a high number
of units completed&emdash;c. 90 units or
more&emdash;at the time you apply will not
disqualify you from the Special Minor, the
inclusion into your proposal of courses already
completed will be examined closely to insure the
relevance of such courses to the focus of your
Special Minor.
4. NUMBER OF UD UNITS IN YOUR PROPOSAL. At
least 12 of the units in your minor should be in
Upper Division courses.
5. UNIQUENESS OF YOUR MINOR. You must make
clear in your proposal why you require a Special
Minor, and why a minor in an existing discipline
would not fulfill your academic goals.
THE IDEAL TIME TO BEGIN A SPECIAL MINOR.
Given the factors discussed above, the ideal
time for you to begin a Special Minor is your
junior year. By your junior year, you will have
had the opportunity to complete much of your GE,
but will not have accumulated an excess of units
toward graduation. You will also have had the
opportunity to prove yourself aca-demically and
to develop the study habits that will help you
succeed with your Special Minor.
SKILLS AND PERFORMANCE COURSES IN THE SPECIAL
MINOR
The Departments of Art, Communication
Studies, Dance, Drama, and Music have a large
number of courses devoted to the development of
skills. These skills include painting,
film-making, writing, directing, dancing,
singing, playing an instrument, and many more.
Although such skills are an im-portant part of a
program in the creative arts, and although they
are not to be excluded from the Special Minor,
the focus of your program must be on ideas
appropriate to the academic tradition; proposals
that emphasize performance at the expense of
intellectual content are not considered suitable
for the Special Minor.
APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS
The Special Minor consists of 20 units of
course work in two or more disciplines. At least
12 of these units should be in Upper Division
courses.
In order to be considered for the Special
Minor, you must have at least half of the course
work in the minor still to be completed after
approval by the ITDS Committee. Work in progress
during the semester of the proposal's approval
will count toward these units. The application
proposal includes your acknowledgment of this
requirement.
Your application consists of the information
specified on the application form and described
in items I-VI below. Items I-III appear in the
application form itself; items IV-VI are to be
submitted with the Application.
Information to be provided in the Application
form:
I. Your name and the title of your minor (see
the application cover sheet)
II. A list of the courses that constitute
your minor
A. The courses must total 20 units.
Restrictions:
1. You may not include courses that you apply
to General Education requirements in your list
of courses.
2. No professional courses in the Education
Department, with exceptions specified by the
Department, may be included in the program of
study.
B. 15-16 units must be taken for a letter
grade (i.e., A-F). No student-instructed courses
may be included in the Core courses.
III. Your signature, the signature of the
ITDS Coordinator and the names and signatures of
the faculty advisors for your minor.
Information to be submitted with the
Application:
IV. A written essay. A written essay must
accompany the application form. This essay is
the rationale for your program and is the most
important part of your proposal. It is here that
you demonstrate that the program you have
developed is both interdisciplinary and of a
content comparable to that of a discipline-based
minor.
The members of your committee must work
closely with you on the application by
suggesting appropriate courses and by providing
whatever help is needed in the writing of the
rationale. It may be helpful to you and your
committee to view the proposal as consisting of
three components: the basic idea of the
proposal, your goals and uses for the course of
study, and the course list.
A. The basic idea: The proposal must have a
focus that goes beyond that of a single
disci-pline. It must be expressed in both the
title of the minor and the rationale. In
defining the basic idea of your course of study,
you must show how the proposed topic is
ap-propriate both as an interdisciplinary course
of study and as an academic program. In the
Special Minor, the necessity to integrate the
disciplines from which you have selected courses
is at the very heart of the program. As an
academic program, a Special Minor should have
substance and breadth comparable to those found
in any established minor in a single subject in
a Liberal Arts Institution.
B. Goals and uses. The rationale must contain
a statement of your goals or objectives for the
course of study, i.e., the knowledge and skills
you seek from the courses you have proposed. You
should also describe your uses for the proposed
course of study. If you are undertaking this
study to prepare for graduate work, you should
state this clearly.
C. Courses. The courses you and your
committee select for your Special Minor must
support and be consistent with the focus of your
proposal as described in the rationale and must
make it possible for you to realize your stated
goals.
D. The justification for a Special Minor at
SSU. You should indicate the specific reasons
why the proposed minor cannot be pursued through
a traditional department or program at Sonoma
State University.
V. Appropriate forms for all Special Studies
and Internships included in the List of Courses.
The description of each such course must include
the name and signature of the faculty sponsor
and a statement concerning the purpose, mode of
study and method of evaluation of the special
study or internship. (NB. Special Studies are
limited to a maximum of 4 units per course; a
student may have in all areas for graduation no
more than 12 units of Special Studies; a student
may not pursue in Special Studies a course that
is listed in the catalog and that is normally
offered within a two-year period.)
VI. Copies of transcripts of all college work
completed. It is your responsibility to make
available the transcripts, including those
concerning SSU course work.
Rev. 5/97