What is an interdisciplinary major?

• requires a collaborative exchange to focus on particular problems or questions that cannot be answered by one discipline. 
• involves "transdisciplinarity" which means, engaging with finding information and connectivity generated outside the academy as well as within it. For example, engaging in “case studies.”
• draws upon a community of scholars or disciplines who share a set of guiding questions, concepts, theories, practices, and methods.
• appreciates multiple disciplinary perspectives and integrates the best elements and insights to generate a comprehensive and nuanced appreciation of the investigation. 
• desires integration as essential for new understanding and meaning.

Luther's Identity Studies combines the four disciplines of Women and Gender Studies, Africana Studies, Dance, and Asian Studies into one major and minor and looks at how people have shaped their own identity. Understanding identity helps empower students to confront various kinds of systems of oppression. Studying these perspectives helps Identity Studies students in their vocations and professions.