College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Individualized Majors Program Home

Program Requirements

Applicants to the IMP program are responsible for developing a proposed course of study, which must be approved by the IMP committee.  In evaluating proposals, the committee adheres to the following requirements.  Because this is an individualized program, the committee will in exceptional cases consider deviations from these requirements, but such deviations must be clearly justified in the IMP proposal.

  1. The major must contain at least 36 hours of coursework, which forms a coherent program grounded in the liberal arts and sciences.
  2. At least 18 hours of courses must be at the 300-400 level.
  3. At least 21 hours of courses must be liberal arts courses as opposed to applied and professional courses.  Most courses in the College of Liberal Arts and sciences count as liberal arts courses, as do many non-professional courses taught in Butler's five professional colleges, as well as liberal arts courses taken at other universities.
  4. No more than 6 credit hours of independent study (independent of thesis research) should be included in the major.
  5. No more than 6 credit hours may be counted for both an IMP major and another major or minor.
  6. The major should include an experience beyond normal classroom-based courses, such as an internship, a semester or more of study abroad, an honors or departmental thesis (which may also serve as a thesis for a second major), a senior seminar in a relevant department, or a service-learning project in the junior or senior year.
  7. The proposal should make clear why the student's educational goals are better served by an individualized major than by an existing major, or combination of major(s) or minor(s).
  8. Students completing an IMP must complete all normal university (e.g., core curriculum) and LAS (e.g., foreign language) requirements. Except for courses taken through the consortium for urban education (CUE), courses taken outside of Butler University during the last 30 hours of academic residence require approval of the dean.
  9. The proposal for an IMP should normally be submitted between the beginning of your sophomore year and the beginning of the second semester of your junior year.
  10. A maximum of 12 credit hours taken prior to the submission of your IMP proposal may normally be counted for the IMP major.
  11. Applicants should have a cumulative GPA of 3.2 or above.

Dr. LuAnne McNulty, Individualized Programs Committee Chairperson
E-mail: lmcnulty@butler.edu

Revised October 2012