School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences

School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences

The School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences (SIAS) offers humanities, social sciences, mathematics and natural sciences.

Our interdisciplinary curriculum is organized around three general dimensions of life: Culture and Ideas (Fine Arts and Humanities), Society and the Individual (Social Sciences), Mathematics and the Natural World (Natural Sciences).

The focus of our curriculum is the comparative study of peoples, groups, societies, cultures and environments within the United States and selected regions of the world.

The goals of the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences curriculum are to help students:

• Develop proficiency in skills such as writing and critical thinking that are needed for productive careers, and gain mastery of a broad curriculum in the humanities, social sciences and environmental science;
• Achieve knowledge of the theories, concepts and methods of cross-cultural analysis; Understand the complexity of relations between groups, societies, cultures and natural environments; the history of these relations and the forces of social change;
• Gain a knowledge and appreciation of cultures other than their own while exploring the expression of cultural identity, thought and beliefs through literature and the other arts; and
• Build experience in the analysis of environmental issues and their scientific basis.