The School of Arts and Sciences prepares students to take their place in a complex and interdependent world as thoughtful people and involved citizens. We encourage students to read perceptively, think clearly and creatively, communicate accurately and effectively, and sharpen their powers of analysis and synthesis. We effect these goals by facilitating excellence in teaching and fostering faculty and student scholarship, creativity, and community involvement.
 

Every department within the School of Arts and Sciences helps students to sharpen their powers of analysis and synthesis in a collective heritage of knowledge in the humanities and social sciences, the arts, and the natural sciences and mathematics. In classroom, laboratory, and community, teachers and students together explore a diverse curriculum. Faculty encourage students to be receptive to the languages, literatures, and institutions of all cultures, past and present; spur them on to participate more fully in an increasingly global society; and prompt them to examine and assess the social, economic, political, artistic, and scientific resources in both the local and world community. Faculty prepare students for further specialized study or for entrance into a career and ready them to lead purposeful, meaningful lives in the midst of change.

The School of Arts and Sciences prides itself on its mission to maintain excellence and vitality in teaching. Good instruction in liberal arts requires disciplinary expertise and research, that is historical and critical, theoretical and applied. The School encourages faculty and student scholarship, creativity, and service to the community.