Dean's Page

I know I am biased, but I attribute our popularity to an unwavering commitment to a strong liberal arts education.

Scott Coltrane is Tykeson Dean of Arts and Sciences

This year we enrolled more than 23,300 students at the University of Oregon, the highest number ever. Virtually all of these students take classes in the College of Arts and Sciences, no matter what field they major in. That’s because our academic plan calls for any UO degree to be based on a strong liberal arts core and CAS provides the foundation for such an education.

What accounts for the recent popularity of the UO? The economic recession has been a factor in enrollment increases across the country and our athletic success might be a motivator for students to consider the UO (but this year’s new students arrived before our football team began its best season ever). I know I am biased, but I attribute our popularity to an unwavering commitment to a strong liberal arts education and a tradition of critical creative thinking and social engagement.

At a time when many colleges and universities are pulling back from offering a traditional comprehensive undergraduate education, we have reaffirmed our belief in this approach. We still require all students to take classes in English composition, plus a year of math for a BS degree and two full years of college-level languages classes to earn a BA degree.

In contrast to the latter, George Washington University just did away with its foreign language requirement and the State University of New York at Albany stopped accepting majors into classics, French, Italian, Russian and theater, with plans to eliminate these departments. USC, Florida State, the University of Iowa, Arkansas at Little Rock, Idaho and Washington State are contemplating closing their German departments to save money—at a time when the UO has not only maintained its undergraduate German program but can also boast one of the most successful in the country. We also offer lesser-taught languages, including ancient and classical languages like Latin, Greek, Arabic and Biblical Hebrew (see Why Study Ancient Languages? in this issue).

At the same time, we have achieved national recognition for having some of the best graduate programs in the nation, as evidenced by our showing in the recent National Research Council rating of research doctorate programs. And we have some of the best teachers in higher education, who continually innovate and find new ways to engage and challenge their students.

Case in point: this year CAS began offering historical role-playing seminars—called Reacting to the Past—to first-year students through our College Scholars program. In these intellectually demanding classes, students take responsibility for understanding, and hypothetically influencing, the course of history by re-enacting events around important turning points in history.

Programs like this not only help our students understand the past, but also prepare them to ask critical questions, collect and evaluate relevant information, think logically, argue appropriately, work collaboratively and act ethically—the skills imparted through a basic liberal arts education. These are exactly the skills that will allow them to take an active role in shaping a better world in the future.

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