Message from IS Graduate Programme

Welcome to the Interdisciplinary Studies at York!

Founded in 1972, it is one of York’s oldest and most illustrious graduate programs. Interdisciplinary Studies is an innovative, pan-university programme that has paved the way for a handful of other, important graduate programs at York University and in Canada.

The vision of its founder, the late Dr. Christopher Innes, was to provide prospective students with the opportunity to imagine one’s own programme of study by creating a project that brings together three disciplines or areas of study. The Programme continues this legacy.

Interdisciplinary Studies boasts a superb record of attracting “the best and the brightest” from a whole range of backgrounds and during their scholarly tenure, its students have produced impressive and inspired creative and academic theses. The Programme’s wide array of renowned professors are drawn from all of York’s eleven faculties and its students are as diverse as the research they undertake: they come from across the globe, hold worlds of experience, and are of all adult ages. Known as a programme that consistently awards degrees, external accreditation bodies have declared that its “excellent combination of structure, rigour and flexibility” provides students with the opportunity to design creative and individualized programs of study and research. “Its structure and learning outcomes reflect the state of the art as practised in other outstanding graduate programs in interdisciplinarity.”

The Graduate Programme in Interdisciplinary Studies is an incubator of Interdisciplinarity, we reward innovation, and are proud to be characterized as “a hidden gem in York’s crown.”

_{A photo of Professor Kymberly Bird}