The Department of Chicana/o Studies provides a venue for the interdisciplinary and multi-method study of social justice as evidenced within Chicana/o/x, Latina/o/x, and Indigenous cultures, communities, and experiences. The Department was created to respond to the need for critically educated K-12 teachers and counselors, those working in the law and public policy, as well as within social and environmental justice non-profit organizations. Over the past fifty years, students have become advocates for their communities, aided by their education in Chicana and Chicano Studies. We were the first in the nation to create a doctorate of Chicano/a Studies and we continue to lead the field with faculty producing innovative research and new Ph.D.s entering the professoriate.<br><br>The Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies is an interdisciplinary undergraduate program that fosters a historical, political, social, and cultural understanding of the heterogeneous Chicano and Chicana experience. Chicana and Chicano Studies builds upon the critical inquiry of traditional disciplines, as well as upon a host of innovative approaches that have surfaced over the last few decades, most notably in gender, ethnic, sexuality, border, and global studies. Chicana and Chicano Studies thus actively advocates the crossing of disciplinary boundaries and encourages the creative interweaving of methods, providing a unique alternative to traditional forms of intellectual inquiry.