UIS Graduate and Undergraduate Catalog
Academic Year 2006 - 2007

COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS AND SCIENCES
Margot Duley, Dean

The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences contains 20 disciplines, representing many of the fundamental building blocks of human knowledge. These disciplines are traditionally clustered into the Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences, Mathematics and Computer Science, and the Natural Sciences. These are configured into 13 undergraduate majors, 14 minors, 4 thematic areas of study, 6 graduate degrees, and 2 graduate certificates.

What binds all of these varied ways of knowing together is the common intellectual skills they stress – the ability to think deeply and systematically about significant questions, to communicate well, and to reach well-researched and sustainable conclusions. The liberal arts and sciences also hold this central academic value: freeing the human mind from prejudice and parochialism through reasoned discourse. The college contributes many of the courses in the UIS general education curriculum. This curriculum offers many opportunities for personal enrichment and exploration, and contains as its organizing principle the concept of engaged citizenship, from local to global.

College faculty are dedicated teacher-scholars. Teaching is a central concern and many have been recognized for their excellence in the classroom. Faculty have also produced many books and articles as well as exhibits and performances. They also are involved in mentoring both undergraduate and graduate students in research projects. The college offers some exceptional classroom, studio, laboratory, and field facilities. These include new state-of-the-art classrooms and computer labs in University Hall, two astronomy observatories, a developing field station on the Illinois River at Emiquon, and access to science lab equipment, such as a DNA sequencer, that is unusual in an undergraduate education.

In addition to its newest initiative in providing a first-class education to traditional-aged students, the college is proud of its long and innovative record in providing educational access for more mature students. In 1974, faculty were founding members of the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning. The Liberal Studies program gives students the opportunity to design their own degrees. Through Credit for Prior Learning, students can gain credit for college-level reasoning acquired through life experiences. The Applied Study Office is a national pioneer in linking the theoretical insights gained in the classroom with the world of work and service through internships (some of them paid) with businesses, state agencies, and community organizations. Our new online degrees, taught primarily by our regular professors, provide college access to time- and place-bound students, using the most modern technologies to continue our historical mission.

The college also supports co-curricular activities such as the Visual Arts Gallery, music and theater programming, the Verbal Arts Festival, field trips, and a variety of program-based student clubs and academic honor societies. 

Degrees and Minors

Bachelor of Arts: Communication, English, History, Liberal Studies, Mathematical Sciences, Philosophy, Psychology, Sociology/Anthropology, Visual Arts

Bachelor of Science: Biology, Chemistry, Clinical Laboratory Science, Computer Science. Master of Arts: Communication, English, History, Individual Option

Master of Science: Biology, Computer Science

Minors: African-American Studies, Anthropology, Biology, Chemistry, Communication, Computer Science, English, History, Mathematical Sciences, Philosophy, Psychology, Sociology, Visual Arts, Women's Studies 

Graduate Certificates: Systems Security, Information Assurance 

Online Degrees
Bachelor of Arts: English, History, Liberal Studies, Mathematical Sciences, Philosophy

Bachelor of Science: Computer Science

Master of Science: Computer Science 

Teaching Certificate and B.A. in Mathematics – blended online program 

Thematic Areas
Astronomy/Physics
Modern Languages
Music
Theater

www.uis.edu/clas