Overview of Interdisciplinary Dissertation-Writing Seminars

The Graduate School is pleased to announce that it is sponsoring new interdisciplinary dissertation-writing seminars for doctoral students. The seminars are intended for those students whose work is explicitly interdisciplinary and whose intellectual and scholarly development at the dissertation writing stage would be enhanced through engaging with faculty and graduate students from other disciplines on topics of common interest. The inaugural seminars will be held during the 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 academic years, and will be led by the Graduate School’s first Interdisciplinary Graduate Faculty Teaching Fellows. These University of Minnesota faculty members were selected from an outstanding pool of applicants for their distinguished records of interdisciplinary research and teaching and for their innovative seminar plans, which mesh with student interest as gauged by a 2008 survey of graduate students who described their work as interdisciplinary.

While each seminar is focused around a different topic, they all share the goal of bringing together students to (1) expand their knowledge of the research subject across disciplinary lines, and (2) help them make progress on their dissertations in an intellectually supportive, interdisciplinary environment. The seminars are open to advanced graduate students, and will be expected to enroll approximately 8-10 students each.

The seminars are part of a larger Graduate School effort to seed new interdisciplinary educational initiatives. These initiatives support the goals set by the University’s strategic positioning initiative of 2005-06 and the recommendations of several Task Forces, which have emphasized interdisciplinary education, research, and scholarship as key factors in attaining our institutional goal of becoming a top three public research university. In addition to supporting these broad institutional objectives, the seminars advance the mission of the Graduate School’s Writing Initiative, which is to ensure that all graduate students have access to formal writing support services designed to help them plan and complete their dissertations and theses in a timely manner.

If you have questions about the Graduate School's interdisciplinary dissertation-writing seminars, please contact Char Voight or Anne Carter.