School of Arts & Sciences

The Heart of the University

The School of Arts & Sciences is the heart of the University of Richmond’s offerings. You can choose from or combine majors from 24 departments and 13 interdisciplinary programs. In the School of Arts & Sciences, you will learn to integrate your classroom experience with your true interests — your calling.

It’s the chance to explore a topic you’ve always been curious about, whether that’s Russian, modern dance, or environmental ethics. It’s getting a different perspective on your favorite subject — thinking through concepts and problems in a way you never have before. It’s satisfying your curiosity and love for learning, and then working to translate that into a career path.

Support A&S

School of Arts & Sciences Dean’s Annual Report

2023-24 Now Available!
Frames of Reference Annual Program of Artists' Film & Video

Art & Art History: Frames of Reference Series

Kevin Jerome Everson

November 6 & 7, 7 p.m. | Jepson Hall 118

Join the Department of Art & Art History for the Frames of Reference series, an annual program of artists’ films and videos. The event is programmed and organized by Jeremy Drummond, associate professor in visual and media arts practice.

Frames of Reference showcases some of the most creative, challenging, thoughtful, and visionary artists working in film, video, and alternative media today. Programs feature artists and artworks that resist conventions and ideologies of mainstream media; explore creative, innovative approaches to narrative and experiments in time-based media; and embrace unique viewpoints, perspectives, or frames of reference.

Kevin Woodson, Professor of Law, University of Richmond

The Black Ceiling: How Race Still Matters in the Elite Workplace

Tuesday, November 12, 5-6:30 p.m. | Humanities Commons 

Law Professor Kevin Woodson will share insights from his book, The Black Ceiling: How Race Still Matters in the Elite Workplace. Based on interviews with more than 100 Black attorneys, investment bankers, and management consultants, the book identifies new obstacles to equity and inclusion that undermine the careers of many Black professionals and workers from other marginalized groups. Woodson will explain these problems and discuss some of the steps that workers, allies, and employers can take to help address them.

Learn more: "Race in the elite workplace," Richmond Law, the magazine of the University of Richmond Law School.
Caroline Keene

Film Studies: Alumni Showcase

Conversations with Film Professionals, Caroline Keene

Thursday, Nov. 14, 7 p.m. | Ukrop Auditorium, Robins School of Business

Join the Film Studies Program for a film screening of Merry Good Enough and Q&A with Caroline Keene, ‘08, received an M.F.A. in screenwriting from the University of Texas at Austin. Her biopic script, My Name is Lorena Weeks, was a top finalist for the Academy Awards Nicholls Fellowship. Merry Good Enough, a dark comedy written and co-directed by Keene, and starring Mad Men’s Joel Murray and Raye Spielberg in her breakout role, debuts in the U.K. this coming holiday season. Described as “deliciously gritty” by Film Threat, the movie won the best NH Feature at The New Hampshire Film Festival. Originally from Massachusetts, Caroline now lives in Los Angeles. She currently has two features in development.

Tucker-Boatwright Festival of Literature and the Arts

2024-20245 Tucker Boatwright Festival of Literature & the Arts

The Nature of Representation

The Nature of Representation asks how our understandings of “nature” have been shaped by representational practices in both the aesthetic and political senses, exploring how the current climate catastrophe is inextricable from colonialism and anthropocentric worldviews. The festival features contemporary writers, artists, and thinkers who don’t take for granted that language is merely human, that there are other “natural” languages, and that attuning to those other languages allows us to tell stories that disrupt the violence of Man.

Susan Stryker, "Changing Gender: A Conversation with Susan Stryker."
Wednesday, November 13, 4:30 p.m. | Humanities Commons

Susan Stryker is one of the founders of trans studies, author of many award-winning books including the almost canonical Transgender History, as well as many influential essays across four decades, some collected in the just-published When Monsters Speak: A Susan Stryker Reader, edited by Mckenzie Wark. One of the most visible and influential trans scholars, she has appeared widely in national and international media. She was co-editor of the Transgender Studies Reader’s two editions, and co-founder of the journal TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly


Hosted by the Department of English.

Two scholars

Meet the 2024-25 Beckman Scholars

A&S students Marcos Hendler, of Rye, New York, and Aine MacDermott, of Lexington, Virginia, have each been awarded a prestigious Beckman Foundation Scholarship to support faculty-mentored student research in the sciences.

Beckman Scholars are selected among undergraduate biology and chemistry students based on commitment to research, strong academics, and potential to become scientific leaders. UR has had 26 Beckman Scholars since 2006.

Hendler, a chemistry major, is studying computational chemistry focused on molecules related to anticancer, which has implications in possible treatments. Hendler’s faculty mentor is chemistry professor Carol Parish. MacDermott, a biochemistry & molecular biology major, is researching ancient DNA under the mentorship of biology professor Melinda Yang. MacDermott is focused on the evolution of the alcohol metabolism gene ADH1B in present-day and ancient East Asian humans.

Representing Nature Question

Humanities Center

2024-2025: How (And Why) Do We Represent Nature?

This question invites us to consider “representation” in both its political and aesthetic meaning. “Nature” is represented in paintings, poems, scripture, music, dancing, novels, laws, regulations, equations, activisms, advertising campaigns. This question asks how environments — and often their relations to human concerns — are represented across media, geographic and cultural contexts, and different historical moments.

Events

Faculty Expertise

Do you envision college as a place where your professor’s office hours are spent in deep conversation about topics beyond this week’s assignment? Where you can work side-by-side with a faculty member on cutting-edge research that is published in a professional journal?

In A&S, our faculty are experts on the cutting edge of their fields. While they could work in some of the top research institutions in the world, our faculty chose Richmond because they believe in educating tomorrow's leaders and are passionate about mentoring and sharing their knowledge with students.

A&S Faculty Highlights

Dr. Kyle Redican
Redican and Undergraduate Student Published

Kyle Redican, teaching faculty of geography, environment, & sustainability and director of the Spatial Analysis Lab, along with undergraduate Shaoting (Tim) Wen, ‘24, and Carlos Hurtado, assistant professor of economics, published “A New Urban Center/Subcenters Identification Approach Based on Open Street Map in Polycentric Urban Landscapes in the US” in the Journal of Transactions in GIS.

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Dr. Jack Singal
Singal Published

Jack Singal, associate professor of physics, published "Redshift Prediction with Images for Cosmology using a Bayesian Convolutional Neural Network with Conformal Predictions" in The Astrophysical Journal.

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Dr. Mariela Méndez
Méndez Published

Mariela Méndez, associate professor of Latin American, Latino, and Iberian Studies, published the chapter "A imprensa 'para mulheres': Possível roteiro de leitura" in Por uma história feminista da literatura brasileira, the first volume of the Feminist History of Brazilian Literature.

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Dr. Wade Downey
Downey & Undergraduate Students Published

Chiles Wade Downey, professor of chemistry and Clarence E. Denoon Jr. Chair in Natural Sciences,  along with undergraduate students Helen L. Xia, ’24, Eric Zhou, ’27, and Bianca Bicalho, ’22, published "Friedel-Crafts alkylations of indoles, furans, and thiophenes with arylmethyl acetates promoted by trimethylsilyl trifluoromethanesulfonate" in Synthetic Communications.

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Dr. Rhiannon Graybill
Graybill Published

Rhiannon Graybill, Marcus M. and Carole M. Weinstein & Gilbert M. and Fannie S. Rosenthal Chair of Jewish Studies, published Narrating Rape: Shifting Perspectives in Biblical Literature and Popular Culture by SCM Press.

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Dr. Michelle Lynn Kahn
Kahn Published

Michelle Kahn, associate professor of history, published Foreign in Two Homelands: Racism, Return Migration, and Turkish-German History by Cambridge University Press.

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