It’s all around us.

It’s the movies we watch, the music we listen to and the products we consume.

It’s popular culture.

A committee of nine has been planning a new interdisciplinary pop culture studies program that members hope will be available in fall 2009.

The 34-hour major is intended to help students develop critical thinking, reading and writing skills while allowing them to follow their own interests in elective courses and an independent capstone course.

It will be the only pop culture major offered in Kentucky and one of only a few in the nation.

It’s modeled after pre-existing liberal arts disciplines and will include courses in history, journalism, anthropology, English, philosophy, sociology and broadcast communication.

Planning for the new major began in January, but is still in the beginning stages as committee members prepare to present all proposals to university committees, said Karen Schneider, head of the English Department and chair of the Pop Culture Program Development Committee.

She said there have been many extremely enthusiastic responses to the e-mail the committee recently sent to students with four questions to gauge interest in the new program.

“This is going to be a rigorous major, not just studying movies and cartoons,” Schneider said. “It will be intellectually challenging, which should make it more appealing to students, not less.”

Students who study popular culture will be able to work in many different career fields such as law, business, advertising, television and film because it will be a versatile major, she said.

“Pop culture enables students to approach thinking about their lives because it is an interdisiplinary major,” she said. “This world is an increasingly complicated place, and they can’t just think of things through one perspective.”

Louisville junior Kristen Houser said she thinks the new program will interest a particular group of people because it will be a creative outlet that will allow students to get a better understanding of popular culture and society.

“I know popular culture effects my generation tremendously because it dictates trends and the expression of people’s minds,” she said.

Houser said she thinks the program would benefit majors such as art, journalism, folk studies and communication because it would put a different spin on their type of work.

The program is structured to compliment minors and double majors in those related disciplines.

Associate History Professor Tony Harkins, a committee member, said pop culture has had a dominant impact on society since culture began.

“It’s in movies, music and even Facebook, not just in contemporary mass media forms like Britney Spears,” Harkins said. “It is part of the air we breath, and it is the culture of everyday life.”

Harkins said the committee is gaining the necessary approvals for the program but is steadily moving forward by gearing up for informative sessions in the spring.

“We hope the new program will provide a great basis for a lot of students’ careers by showing them that things that are often dismissed as ‘fluff’ in society actually have a lot of meaning to them,” he said. “It will be a really exciting opportunity for Western.”

Reach Alex Booze at diversions@chherald.com.