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EnglishWhat Is the Graduate Interdisciplinary Programs (GIDP) Website at the University of Arizona?
Updated
The GIDP website (gidp.arizona.edu) is the home of the University of Arizona's Graduate Interdisciplinary Programs — a set of 21 graduate programs that cross traditional departmental boundaries. It is the place to learn how these programs work, what they offer, and how they connect students with research and funding across campus. It is most useful if you are considering an interdisciplinary graduate degree at UA or want to understand the scale and structure of the programs.
What the GIDP Is
GIDP facilitates teaching and research where traditional disciplines meet. According to the site, the programs "transcend departmental boundaries" by combining ideas, techniques, and expertise from established academic fields — a model the university says dates back more than 60 years, when founding directors concluded that this kind of work could not be done effectively within a single department.
The programs operate through collaboration between colleges across campus and the 21 GIDPs. The site frames this as part of UA's broader mission and as one of the ways the university fosters innovation among faculty and students.
The Programs in Numbers
The homepage presents a snapshot of scale and funding. These are the figures as stated on the site:
| Metric | Figure |
|---|---|
| Graduate students enrolled in GIDPs | 400 |
| GIDP students funded through Graduate Assistantships | 65% |
| Campus departments that hired GIDP students as Graduate Assistants | 59 |
| Share of all doctoral degrees awarded that were GIDPs | 8.5% |
Two things stand out for a prospective student. First, a large majority of enrolled students (65%) are supported through graduate assistantships, and that support is spread across 59 hiring departments — meaning assistantship placements are not confined to a single unit. Second, GIDPs account for a small but real share of doctoral degrees (8.5%), so the programs are a meaningful but specialized path rather than a mainstream one.
Who the Site Is For
- Prospective students weighing an interdisciplinary program against a traditional department, who want to see how the programs are structured and funded.
- Current students looking for information on assistantships and cross-departmental opportunities.
- Faculty and researchers interested in the collaborative model and how GIDPs fit into the university's research mission.
What to Keep in Mind
The homepage gives you the framing and the aggregate numbers, not the details of any single program. If you need specifics — admission requirements, deadlines, faculty lists, or the curriculum for one of the 21 programs — you will need to go beyond the landing page to the individual program pages. The site also does not state costs or application logistics on the homepage, so treat the numbers above as context for the programs' scale rather than as a complete picture of what enrollment involves.
A practical next step: use the numbers to judge fit (for example, whether assistantship funding matters to you and whether a program with roughly 400 students across 21 fields matches the attention and cohort size you want), then look up the specific program you are considering for its own requirements.