Family Studies Interdisciplinary Minor
Frequently Asked Questions

What can you do with a family studies minor?
A family studies minor complements most majors. It focuses on the context of the family to illustrate the principles in many majors. For example, nursing takes a holistic approach to health, emphasizing the whole person. Family studies can extend and amplify this focus by concentrating on health within the context of the family. Similarly, education also concentrates on the interaction of the learning/teaching environment with the home environment. This provides a natural connection to family studies. Thus, students can use the minor to direct the precepts of the major specifically toward the context of the family.

Why must all family studies minors take the capstone seminar?
The capstone seminar allows students to really focus on their area of interest and pull all the information about their major and minor together. Further, the seminar requires students to think synthetically in an interdisciplinary fashion. This is good preparation for most workplaces which expect employees to integrate many disciplines.

How do you find out who is teaching the capstone seminar?
The capstone seminar is taught by the director of the Family Studies program. Currently that is Dr. Lynn Turner, Communication Studies. You can determine the director on the website, in the timetable of classes, or by calling Darlene Liegl in the Arts and Sciences main office: 288-3223.

What are the requirements in the capstone seminar?
The capstone seminar requires regular attendance once a week, active participation, and the completion of a major, seminar paper, focusing on a question which can be examined through an interdisciplinary lens. In order to accomplish this, students must find two advisers from two different disciplines on campus to agree to mentor and evaluate them on the seminar paper.

Why do you have to have 2 advisers for your paper in the seminar?
Having two advisers helps force students to integrate at least two different disciplines in the seminar paper. It provides two ways at looking at the question and the two advisers can guide students toward two different literatures that relate to the question of interest.

Do you have to declare the minor?
It is VERY desirable to do so.

How do you declare it?
Go to Johnston Hall Rm 114 and ask Susan Clinton for a declaration form. Fill it out, make a copy, keep one and return the other to Ms. Clinton. The director confers with faculty across the university to determine which classes touch directly on issues pertaining to the family. These classes change from time to time and so the list is periodically updated. If you know of a class you have taken on campus that you think should be on the list, but is not, please email Lynn Turner lynn.turner@mu.edu with the information.

What if I want to substitute a class that isn't on the list?
Talk to Dr. Turner about that possibility.

How do I find out what the requirements are for the minor?
The requirements are on the website. They are also on the declaration form you get from Ms. Susan Clinton as well as being listed in the Undergraduate Bulletin under Interdisciplinary Majors and Minors.