Background: The University of Arkansas defined in 1998 an experimental interdisciplinary technology graduate program in Microelectronics-Photonics (microEP). While the microEP Graduate Program is an interdisciplinary degree-granting entity reporting directly to the Graduate School, its academic program elements are reviewed and approved through the normal academic processes of both the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Engineering. Faculty and students enter the program primarily with Physics, Chemistry, and Electrical, Chemical, and Mechanical Engineering backgrounds, but may enter from any rigorous science or engineering degree program. The first students entered the program in the fall 1998 semester, with the MS and PhD microEP degrees fully approved in July 1999 and July 2000 respectively.

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The interdisciplinary graduate program in Microelectronics-Photonics (microEP) was created at the University of Arkansas in the fall of 1998 to merge traditional graduate research and educational excellence with specific training in operational effectiveness methods, intra and entrepreneurial skills, and teaming and group dynamics practice. The stated goal of this approach was to create a graduate program that emulates the industrial work group environment, with the group objective being that every graduate student achieves the highest academic training of which he or she is capable.

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