Program Overview

The Division of Humanities offers courses designed to prepare students for life by providing them the necessary skills and knowledge to continue intellectual development and character formation throughout their lives. We believe that the best preparation for any career includes study in courses that teach critical thinking, the student’s own culture, appreciation of diverse cultures, and positive character formation – those courses that, in short, help people to become more capable and to live more satisfying and productive lives. The Division of Humanities offers courses in English, Humanities, Fine Arts, Foreign Languages, Mass Communications, Music, Religion and Philosophy, Speech, and Drama.

Major Area of Study

The Division of Humanities offers major degree programs in English Education, English/Literature, English/Writing, Mass Communications/Broadcast Journalism, Mass Communications/Print Journalism and Music with special emphasis on preparing students to compete in graduate and professional schools, as well as in the global marketplace.

Divisional Goals

 In pursuit of its mission, the Division of Humanities will offer courses to:

  • Help students to see and understand how the world’s people, cultures, and ideas are larger than one’s own and to engage and interact with these carefully, critically, and respectfully.
  • Develop critical thinking skills by careful reading, healthy skepticism, openness to new ideas, and exposure to new ideas.
  • Develop writing and speaking skills that are effective, well-supported, organized, and clearly articulated arguments using both primary and secondary sources, and correct documentation style.
  • Help students recognize the importance of research and service in education.

Divisional Learning Outcomes

Students in the Division of Humanities are expected to improve their skills as they progress from the first to the last course, and will be able to:

  • Demonstrate critical and analytical thinking — as evident in ability to handle historical, factual and textual evidence fairly – and relate analyses and interpretations of different texts to one another.
  • Demonstrate a historical consciousness — as evident in ability to identify the most critical issues that confronted particular periods and locations in Western history.
  • Demonstrate an awareness of the aesthetic values of the arts and develop creativity, imagination and artistic expression of feelings — as evident in ability to identify particular key works of art (literature, music, visual arts) from Western traditions.
  • Demonstrate speaking skills through students’ participation in class discussions, speeches and presentations.
  • Demonstrate writing skills by composing their thoughts in a variety of written forms (e.g., response notebooks; essay tests; quizzes; textual analyses; formal research papers).
  • Demonstrate their ability to better understand themselves as persons whose identities are shaped through participation in a wider community and longer history — as evident in ability to recognize and analyze ways in which the inheritance of historical Western and non-Western cultures have shaped contemporary American culture.