New Interdisciplinary Minors Prepare Chapman Students for Career Success
March 12, 2021
This academic year Chapman added four minors to its roster of more than 60, further enhancing the university’s tradition of personalized education. Two of the additions come from Wilkinson College, Africana Studies and Law and the Liberal Arts.
A hallmark of these minors is an interdisciplinary curriculum, especially with Africana Studies. That was by design, says student Lucile Henderson ’21, who was enlisted by faculty to help shape the Africana Studies minor.
“Often, this minor focuses on history classes. We wanted to broaden that, so the minor includes classes that overlap with art, music and sociology, along with a foundation in history,” says Henderson, who is majoring in communication studies and working toward a second minor in studio art. “It speaks to the fact that African and African-American history isn’t just about one thing. It’s more multifaceted.”
The new minor Law and the Liberal Arts minor emphasizes law’s role in society, says program director Bas Van der Vossen, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Philosophy and the Smith 
Institute for Political Economy.
“The minor’s electives consist of courses from across the curriculum,” Van der Vossen says. “It will help students prepare to think critically and analytically about the law in the well-rounded way typical of the liberal arts.”
