About the College of Arts & Sciences

The arts and humanities at Bucknell study the capacities and forms of expression that make up the human experience — language, memory, symbol and aesthetic appreciation.

Students majoring in classics & ancient Mediterranean studies, comparative humanities, East Asian studies, English, history, languages and literature, philosophy and religion engage in two vital aspects of liberal learning:

• Conscious participation in historical, literary and linguistic traditions.
• A personal consideration of those questions that help them examine life and seek its meaning.

Students in theatre, dance, art, art history, creative writing, film/media studies and music engage in study, performance, teaching and analysis through courses that recognize the fine arts as a mirror in which cultures reflect themselves. Bucknell faculty believe that to fully understand any culture, including your own, you must be able to grasp, interpret and respond to artistic creations and symbols.

Students in the arts and humanities — as in other areas of study at Bucknell — are encouraged to approach their subject matter in a variety of ways, such as undergraduate research projects; creating art or participating in music, drama and dance performances; or becoming members of the Arts, Humanities, or Languages & Cultures Residential Colleges.

Contact
Professor Anthony Stewart
Associate Dean of Faculty, Division of Arts & Humanities
119 Marts Hall
570-577-3293
anthony.stewart@bucknell.edu

The social sciences at Bucknell allow students to explore the many dimensions of human behavior and relationships from a broad spectrum of perspectives. These disciplines provide their students with an understanding of individuals, organizations and societies. Courses of study within the social sciences include programs in anthropology, economics, education, geography, political science, psychology and sociology. In addition, there are several interdisciplinary majors combining social science courses with the humanities or natural sciences, including environmental studies, Latin American studies, international relations and women’s & gender studies.

Bucknell's social science programs benefit greatly by their close interaction with all of the other academic programs on campus. Students engage in such out-of-the-classroom initiatives as the Food, Global, Society & Technology, and Social Justice Residential Colleges; community internships and service projects; and undergraduate research. All of the activities support a common objective of the social sciences: to understand and address — through research, analysis and synthesis of knowledge — the profound social problems faced by humankind.

Contact
Professor Michelle Johnson
Associate Dean of Faculty, Division of Social Sciences
120 Marts Hall
570-577-3293
michelle.johnson@bucknell.edu

The University's long-held reputation as an educator of scientists is largely based on the science faculty's commitment to educating students who can understand how science does and does not work; who can apply scientific and mathematical principles; and who can communicate with other educated individuals about the nature of our world and those scientific issues affecting humans and their environment.

Bucknell's science and mathematics programs — animal behavior, biology, biophysics, cell biology/biochemistry, chemistry, computer science, environmental geosciences, environmental science, geology, mathematics, neuroscience and physics — maintain a common commitment to the principle that students learn most effectively through a hands-on, laboratory- and field-centered approach to learning the sciences. Underlying the teaching and research that informs these courses of study is the conviction that each student should have a fundamental understanding of the nature of scientific inquiry and its applications.

Bucknell is well known for the unusually broad array of undergraduate research opportunities available to students in all of the disciplines taught on campus. Nowhere is this tradition stronger than in the individual faculty research laboratories within the natural sciences and mathematics division. In addition to such co-curricular programs as the Environmental and Society & Technology Residential Colleges and special summer research courses abroad, students can gain real and substantive laboratory and fieldwork experience alongside professors in all of Bucknell's science programs during the academic year and the summer.

Contact
Professor Le Paliulis
Associate Dean of Faculty, Division of Natural Sciences & Mathematics
121 Marts Hall
570-577-3293
le.paliulis@bucknell.edu

The bachelor of arts degree is central to the liberal arts mission of the college and offers students the dual opportunities to pursue depth of study in a single discipline and to follow their interest broadly across the curriculum. Students have until spring of their sophomore year to choose a BA major, giving them ample time for intellectual growth and exploration with the help of faculty advisers.

Programs in the natural sciences, mathematics, music, education and computer science offer a bachelor of science degree in addition to a bachelor of arts option. The bachelor of science degree focuses more of the student's study on the discipline of the major and related disciplines but still allows exposure to the humanities and social sciences.

Build and support transformative living-learning experiences through communities grounded in a liberal arts identity and strongly entwined with cultural humility and practices of diversity, equity and inclusion — and that foster the development of positive change-makers. Faculty, staff and students will sustain these communities through active intellectual commitment.

Create an educational environment that continually transforms Bucknell — its students, faculty, staff and broader communities — for the common good. Central to our commitment to transformative education is social justice and the pursuit of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Transformative education is a product of shared and multidirectional interactions among a variety of groups of people on and around Bucknell's campus.

Encourage and enable students to consider their education as one path in a lifetime journey of curiosity, exploration and preparation. Achieving this big idea requires us to commit to giving students more opportunities to prepare for their career and life goals by exploring the curriculum, discovering their passions and finding a place in the campus community. A developmental approach to advising will address the whole student and help them to view themselves broadly as students of the liberal arts.

Seek and create knowledge, understanding and meaning through scholarship, and share the experience of meaning-making with our students so they can participate in the creation of diverse knowledge. It is through understanding and valuing the diversity within our scholarship, and in finding ways to support it both effectively and equitably, that we can live up to our full potential as a college.