When the Fine Arts Doctoral Program was instituted in 1972, it was designated an interdisciplinary fine arts program owing to its core component comprised of studies in philosophy and in the visual and performing arts of art, music, and theatre. Today, some disciplines would recognize the Fine Arts Doctoral Program as a multidisciplinary arts program, in that the core disciplines are taught as separate entities that all can be examined using aesthetic philosophies. “Interdisciplinary arts” now often require a more holistic curriculum and / or examination using non-disciplinary based critical theory. Housed within the College of Visual and Performing Arts, the Fine Arts Doctoral Program maintains its interest in interdisciplinary arts by hosting at least two interdisciplinary fine arts focus events each year. These events incorporate two or more of the visual and performing arts together with varying perspectives offered by (for example) philosophy, creative writing, theories on the nature of creativity, religious or spiritual notions, gender theory, and so on, thereby serving as a forum for intellectual engagement by campus and external audiences.

In addition to the Fine Arts core, students major in one of the visual and performing arts disciplines of art, music, or theatre. Within the majors, students and their advisors individualize the curriculum to emphasize such focal areas as music education, art education, history & criticism, acting & directing, and so on. Arts administration coursework is available to each of the majors, although music and theatre majors offer more options for arts management as a focal area of study. Faculty in theatre have prepared organized courses on theatre management, advocacy, and funding which together create a focus in theatre administration. However, the issues treated in theatre administration courses are applicable to all the visual and performing arts disciplines, and are directed to all students in the Fine Arts Doctoral Program. Taught by the Dean of the college, whose experiences in arts administration at several institutions provide insights into managing multidisciplinary arts programs, a new Visual and Performing Arts Topics course focuses on Leadership and Ethics. The combination of a core curriculum in multidisciplinary arts, interdisciplinary fine arts focus events, and a disciplinary major that allows individualized focus areas such as education, theory, and arts administration together create a rigorous program that culminates in a dissertation and presents a viable alternative to traditional disciplinary-based doctoral programs.