SMU announced in May the establishment of its seventh School, the College of Integrative Studies (CIS), with its first intake of up to 100 students in Academic Year 2023/24. The vision of the CIS is to produce graduates who “will be equipped to look beyond the boundaries of a single discipline, enabling them to make a bold pivot to the new realities of an ever-changing world”. SMU President Professor Lily Kong said during the CIS launch: “By removing institutional limits on how students can combine disciplines and courses, we offer an extraordinary level of flexibility and range of permutations that makes this degree experience responsive to the needs of government, business and society, and exciting for students and partners alike.” Dean of CIS and Professor of Political Science Elvin Lim shared what prompted the CIS idea and how he is currently working on putting into place systems and procedures so that the School is set up for success in the future. The long-term vision, he says, is to create “an intellectual community where students and faculty are equally enthused about the mission of integrative studies and this is reflected in a distinctive pedagogy and research output”.