The doctoral program requirements are based on the following principles:

• Students study with a variety of professors.

• Students have regular elective choices of seminars throughout the College of Fine Arts and Ohio University.

• Doctoral students in Interdisciplinary Arts are regularly in the classroom with other students who are engaged in graduate study of the arts.

• Students gain a strong scholarly expertise in one area and a secondary scholarly expertise in another area.

• The program is imbued with interdisciplinary study.

• Students have the opportunity to study and engage in the practice of the arts in order to understand the crossover between theory/criticism/history and practice.

• The education is project based, from the seminars to individual, independent research. Students learn how to conduct interdisciplinary research on a given project with the goal of applying the techniques to further studies.

• Scholarship is fostered at the graduate level. Students are expected to submit papers to scholarly conferences and encouraged to submit articles for publication.