ASU celebrated the opening of the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies on Wednesday in a ceremony that emphasized the new school’s interdisciplinary focus.

The new school consists of three departments that used to be part of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, but were brought together because of their underlying humanistic mentality, the founding director of the school said.

The history, philosophy and religious studies departments were merged together into a new school because of budget cuts.

“What is remarkable is that all of my colleagues are humanists,” director Mark von Hagen said. “Some admit that they are for the social sciences and others perhaps identify with the natural sciences or professional schools, but all are making impacts on their local, regional, national and global communities.”

President Michael Crow, along with several other University officials, spoke at the launch celebration regarding the benefit of combining the history, philosophy and religious studies departments.

“We need tremendously enhanced perspectives … if we are to have any chance whatsoever, in real time, to catch up with what history, philosophy and religion tells us about who we are, what we are, where we came from and where we’re going,” Crow said.

He addressed a crowd with a seemingly overall positive response, but later mentioned the faculty’s response to the merger and added that he is waiting for positive synergies that will hopefully occur.

Kent Wright, the school’s faculty head of history, said he was “deeply against this at the start,” but realized there are many financial and intellectual benefits to the merger.

“I think it has all of these exciting opportunities for interdisciplinary students,” Wright said. “None of the faculty has lost anything. Nothing has disappeared, we’ve just added several layers.”

Wright said he is excited to be doing interdisciplinary work, and one of the examples of a combined faculty effort is the creation of a 100-level class that allows students of any major to gain basic knowledge of the school’s three parameters.

Interdisciplinary opportunities will also be highlighted through team-taught classes that involve faculty of different historical, philosophical and religious educational backgrounds, Dean of Humanities Deborah Losse said.

“Graduate students and undergraduate students can learn and profit from working with professors in the same classroom who approach things from a different perspective, so we look forward to those team-taught classes that will bring these perspectives together,” Losse said.

Public history graduate student Billy Kiser said he is excited about the launch of the new school and is looking forward to hearing various perspectives on different aspects of his area of study.

“It brings three separate disciplines together by putting thoughts and ideas of scholars together and allow for integration,” he said.

When Kiser applied for the master’s program last December, he said he didn’t know anything about the prospect of a new school, but was informed when he visited ASU in March for orientation.

Crow said by creating more schools focused on interdisciplinary study through the creation of new teaching, learning and discovery opportunities, ASU will be seen as a university that is unlike any other.

“The last thing we want to be is like everyone else,” Crow said.

Reach the reporter at slsnyder@asu.edu.