Maria Bachman has been named director of the bachelor's degree program in Interdisciplinary Studies, which is now located in the Thomas W. and Robin W. Edwards College of Humanities and Fine Arts at Coastal Carolina University.

The Interdisciplinary Studies degree program is a flexible and innovative program that allows students to construct and develop an individualized study of program that best serves their professional and educational objectives by combining courses from various disciplines across the university. Bachman will be working to continue the success of the existing program, as well as proposing new interdisciplinary initiatives across academic departments.

Bachman, associate professor of English, will continue to direct Coastal's Women's and Gender Studies Program, an interdisciplinary program that draws on resources from education, business, humanities, the fine arts, and natural and applied sciences.

She was named the 2006 South Carolina Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. She earned a bachelor's degree from George Washington University, a master's degree from George Mason University and a doctorate from the University of Tennessee. Bachman teaches courses on 19th-century British literature and culture, children's literature and gender studies.

She has co-edited scholarly editions of two novels, "The Woman in White" and "Blind Love" by the 19th century writer Wilkie Collins. She has also edited a book collection of critical essays, "Reality's Dark Light: The Sensational Wilkie Collins" and has published articles on Samuel Richardson, Benjamin Disraeli, Edward Bulwer-Lytton and Charles Dickens. She is currently working on an interdisciplinary book project on embodied consciousness and the novel.