Conscience

Arts & Sciences will sustain curricular and co-curricular structures and programs to support our intellectual production, community engagement, and ecological responsibility in ways that exemplify our shared values.

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  • Global Difference Makers

    Arts & Sciences will be a diverse community of global difference-makers, whose ideas, creative production, and innovations will be known across the University of Richmond and throughout the world.

    Arts & Sciences will be a diverse community of global difference-makers, whose ideas, creative production, and innovations will be known across the University of Richmond and throughout the world. Arts & Sciences’ community members will be at the forefront of their fields because of their creative and scholarly work. Through our contributions to UR’s thriving and inclusive community, our social justice commitments, and our inclusive pedagogy and environmental initiatives, we will be well-known for being global difference-makers.

    A&S in the world

    • A&S’s identity and the university brand aligned
    • A&S’s contributions to learning, thriving, and inclusion celebrated
    • International collaborations pursued
    • Geospatial practices, e.g., an Environmental Humanities component of the Humanities Initiative, supported

    Support for our community of learners

    • Sense of shared A&S identity developed, e.g., majors and milestones in a student’s academic career celebrated
    • Revamped Honors Convocation and Symposium
    • Annual "State of A&S" opening ceremony established
    • For A&S faculty, directors, and staff, sharing of scholarship and artistic production sustained
    • Achievements that addresses A&S’s goals rewarded

    While these are examples of signature initiatives, we will be attentive to ongoing evaluation of this standard to align tactics with our goals.

  • Education for Self-Awareness and Responsibility

    Arts & Sciences will offer an education that prepares, inspires, and gives a framework for the lifelong journey of conceptualizing oneself and recognizing one’s impact on others.

    Curiosity about the world raises questions of the self. Arts & Sciences will offer an education that prepares, inspires, and gives a framework for the lifelong journey of conceptualizing oneself and recognizing one’s impact on others. From questions such as, "What is justice? What is truth?" we move to reflections upon action: "How will I live my life? What should I do with my life? What difference will I make?" Answering these questions requires an education based in ethical understanding, respect for others, and an understanding of the relationship between the individual and the collective. Addressing these questions also requires comprehensive knowledge of the past and present.

    Self-awareness is our first UR value, the beginning "S" in Spider, from the university’s strategic plan. Self-efficacy is a value named in the Richmond Endeavor, which grounds first-year students in a sense of place and a community of peers, which includes

    The first-year experience, and beyond

    Building from existing strengths

    Support for our community of learners

    • Training of faculty and staff in self-awareness and self-efficacy
    • Achievements that addresses A&S’s goals rewarded

    While these are examples of signature initiatives, we will be attentive to ongoing evaluation of this standard to align tactics with our goals.

  • Committed to Full Participation

    Arts & Sciences will be a community of learners who are attentive to thriving, inclusion, and social justice.

    Arts & Sciences provides a learning environment in which all are free and able to express their full selves. Arts & Sciences will be a community of learners who are attentive to thriving, inclusion, and social justice. Our education reaches for justice by being inclusive, equitable, and sustainable. We respect community members’ as whole persons, whose time, experiences and backgrounds, and unique contributions are of value to the community. We ask each student, staff and faculty member to challenge themselves and to be empowered to seek, to know, and to act.

    As it pertains to curricular, co-curricular, and community-wide implementation of learning redefined, education for self-awareness and responsibility, and our commitment to full participation, the A&S Dean’s Office will:

    Support for projects focused on inclusion, thriving, and social justice, such as

    Pursuit of opportunities, e.g., the Provost’s TOPs Initiative, to build capacity to support our increasingly diverse community of learners

    While these are examples of signature initiatives, we will be attentive to ongoing evaluation of this standard to align tactics with our goals.