Institute for Liberal Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies
The Institute is a center for academic excellence and innovation in the liberal arts. Our curriculum and programs focus on interdisciplinary approaches to academic inquiry, exploring new approaches to teaching and learning and the role of the liberal arts in an increasingly complex, diverse, and mediated world.
The Institute is the home of the Emerson College Honors Program, a four year interdisciplinary program that brings together top students from across the College in a series of intensive seminars and independent learning experiences that culminate in a senior capstone project in each student’s major field of study.
The Institute is also home to Emerson’s First Year Seminar Program. During their first year of study, all Emerson students select a first year seminar on themes as various as “Ways of Seeing,” “Good and Evil,” “The City,” and “Ritual and Performance.” Each year, the Institute offers more than twenty seminar topics of historical and contemporary importance to the study of the Liberal Arts. Through the New Pathways Program, students may also choose to participate in one of our first year learning communities, linking their work in the first year seminar with a residential theme floor to provide a first year "living and learning" experience.
Students interested in service, community involvement, and leadership opportunities are welcome to participate in the many internship and co-curricular programs offered through our Office of Service Learning and Community Action.
For students who wish to develop their own major, the Institute offers the Individually Designed Interdisciplinary Program (IDIP). Through this program, students can design their own majors using courses, minors, and concentrations from across the College and the ProArts Consortium. Recent majors include: Writing for Television and Film, Marketing and the Music Industry, Non-Fiction and New Media, Studies in World Literature and the Arts, Media Production and Management, International Communications, and Urban Studies and Visual Design.
Through the Institute, students can also take upper level courses or complete interdisciplinary minors in emerging fields such as Women's and Gender Studies, Post-Colonial and Global Studies, Performance Studies, Digital Media and Culture, American Studies, and Urban Studies/Community Involvement.
The faculty and staff of the Institute are committed to the ideals of an open creative and intellectual environment in which individual talents and diverse voices flourish, and critical skills are developed and honed. We welcome you to peruse our program offerings and to get involved where you can. The majority of students become involved in at least one area of the Institute during their time at Emerson; if you will be among them, we look forward to meeting you. If you have questions about our programs, please feel free to contact us at any time.
Richard West, Ph.D.
Interim Executive Director
