Multidisciplinary Master's Option

After having been formally and unconditionally admitted into an existing master’s degree program and initiating master’s studies, the classified students may decide to petition into the multidisciplinary master’s option.

The availability of academic resources to support a multidisciplinary program must be critically investigated and reviewed, and the associate dean or center director reserves final approval of this option.

To begin thet process, students prepare a draft of a proposal that describes the multidisciplinary program envisioned. The title of the multidisciplinary program must be distinctly different from the departments and major fields of master’s study at Saint Louis University. In particular, the draft must contain the rationale, the full complement of applicable, post-baccalaureate academic work proposed, i.e. work already completed as well as the work yet to be taken, and the general area of capstone/thesis research. With the proposal draft in hand, students proceed to select a minimum five members of the graduate faculty to serve as a committee that, in effect, becomes the department or major field. Service on the committee is an invited faculty member’s option. A proposed chairperson of the committee is designated. All members need to have graduate faculty status.

A formal petition into the option, signed individually by all of the proposed committee members, must be submitted to the associate dean(s) and/or center director(s) and the associate provost for academic affairs. The petition with appropriate supporting documentation from the student’s academic file is then transmitted to the proposed committee chairperson for evaluation of the student’s preparedness for and potential for academic success in the envisioned program. By this time the proposal draft should have been critiqued by the committee and subsequently revised to reflect their evaluative comments.

If the recommendation from the proposed committee chairperson for approval of the multidisciplinary master’s is positive, the petition (including the proposal) is reviewed by the Graduate Academic Affair Committee (GAAC). The associate provost for academic affairs is the liaison to GAAC on behalf of students, who should meet with the liaison at least once before GAAC considers the petition and proposal. The entire course of study will be reviewed for approval by the associate provost for academic affairs. GAAC may annually review each multidisciplinary master’s program and the progress therein, and make recommendations to the associate provost for academic affairs. In addition to coursework, the program must include some type of capstone – project, thesis or exam.