ABSTRACT This comprehensive study asks what a group of rather diverse disciplines have in common. It involves a cross-disciplinary examination of an entire college, the College of Design at Iowa State University. This research was intended to provide a sense of direction in developing and assessing possible core content. The reasoning was that material that is necessary to all of the different design programs would be likely material for the core. In this study, a referenced qualitative study and subsequent quantitative process documented the learning most valued by six different design programs: Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Community and Regional Planning, Graphic Design, Interior Design, and Integrated Studio Arts. This study produced a process that can be used to define a core program bridging differences in lens and terminology.