The college-wide interdisciplinary graduate program approach to graduate education is a viable alternative to the departmental structure for areas of study that span two or more traditional disciplines. This article will explore the nature of this organizational style using materials science and engineering as the example discipline. We will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the graduate program approach in the light of more than 18 years of experience at the University of Texas at Austin.

The primary task of any center for higher learning is the education of students in an environment conducive to the open exchange and dissemination of ideas and knowledge. Traditionally, the university has approached this task by assembling scholars with common foundations of expertise into a collective group, the department. Besides the obvious function of providing a structured setting for the concentration of scholars with similar interests, the department also serves as the front line of faculty governance for matters including tenure, promotion, salary, resource management, and distribution. For example, course content and degree requirements are initiated at the department level. Thus the organizational structure of the college, and hence of the university, is firmly built on the traditional concept of department, a concept that has served education well.

However, there are liabilities to the departmental structure since its natural tendency is to compartmentalize knowledge with the concomitant academic provincialism. This mindset poses a particularly serious problem for a number of subject areas that are intrinsically multidisciplinary. Several examples in the field of engineering science are biomedical engineering, manufacturing and industrial engineering, nuclear engineering, environmental engineering and also materials science and engineering.