Curriculum

Arts & Sciences will develop intellectual dexterity in all its community members through a wide-ranging and multi-disciplinary liberal arts curriculum that intentionally scaffolds learning, encourages curiosity, challenges preconceived ideas, and helps define a college-wide identity.

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  • Open to Wonderment

    Arts & Sciences will be an intellectual environment where learners are asked to behold, to admire, and to imagine.

    A traditional Arts & Sciences education does more than produce end-products or items for consumption; such an education sparks curiosity for its own sake and for how it edifies the self. A&S will be an intellectual environment where learners are asked to behold, to admire, and to imagine. In A&S, a community of learners reflects upon time-honored questions: "What is justice? What is truth? What is beauty?" Asking such questions prepares us for lives of meaning.

    Preparation for a life of meaning and reflection

    • Exceptional undergraduate curriculum
    • Sustained funding for exceptional Undergraduate Summer Research Projects

    Cultivation of shared meaning

    • Planning, organization, and collaboration, in ways that support an open exchange of new, challenging, and constructive ideas
    • Creation of Theme Year programming that brings our entire community of learners together to discuss a shared topic.

    Support for our community of learners

    • Maintenance of up-to-date Departmental Career Profiles that recognize innovations in teaching and learning, e.g., new directions in Digital Humanities
    • Coordination and communication with the Provost’s Office and HR for the lifelong learning of our staff and faculty
    • Reward achievements among the community of learners that addresses A&S’s goals

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

  • Learning Redefined

    Arts & Sciences will advance initiatives that encourage learners to take intellectual risks, work collaboratively, and pursue new modes of discovery and understanding.

    Learning transforms lives. The classroom is still where UR students engage faculty mentors to ask questions, build knowledge, and hone skills. In addition to these tried and true methods, A&S will advance initiatives that encourage learners to take intellectual risks, work collaboratively, and pursue new modes of discovery and understanding.

    Cohort and problem-based learning

    Preparation for life after college

    Support for our community of learners

    • Interdisciplinary studies programs as sites for innovation
    • Maintenance of up-to-date Departmental Career Profiles that recognize innovations in teaching and learning, e.g., new directions in Digital Humanities
    • Sabbatical Fellows Program that supports exceptional sabbatical leaves at 100%
    • Coordination and communication with the Provost’s Office and HR for the lifelong learning of our staff and faculty
    • Reward achievements among the community of learners that address A&S’s goals

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

  • Ingenuity Realized

    Arts & Sciences enables our students, staff, and faculty to transform their potential into meaningful accomplishments.

    Recognizing that everyone brings exceptional abilities to the UR community, Arts & Sciences enables our students, staff, and faculty to transform their potential into meaningful accomplishments. Scholars deepen knowledge and make discoveries while artists embody new modes of expression. Learning, openness, ethics, and inclusion yield growth, understanding, and innovation.

    Ingenuity across UR

    Support for our community of leaners

    • Interdisciplinary studies programs as sites for innovation
    • Maintain up-to-date Departmental Career Profiles that recognize innovations in teaching and learning, e.g., new directions in Digital Humanities
    • High-performance computing: Proof of Concept
    • 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.

  • 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.