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College of Arts and Sciences

SLU’s College of Arts and Sciences will educate your whole self — mind, body, heart, and spirit — to prepare you for a future in a rapidly changing world.

Across our many majors, the College of Arts and Sciences offers wide-ranging courses that serve as the framework for you to become a citizen of the world. You can study the human brain, living organisms and their interactions with the environment, political, social, and economic systems, historical, religious, and philosophical ideas, mathematical models and data science, as well as the varied expressions of artistic creativity and human culture. All of our programs offer unique opportunities that allow you to develop your interests and coursework in ways that prepare you for professional employment and a successful future. No matter what major you choose, you can bring your passions and your whole self to the College of Arts and Sciences.

Additionally, your specialized education in your major is integrated with SLU’s Undergraduate Core Curriculum, which helps you to further examine the nature and substance of the individual person, as well as the essence of human creativity and imagination. The Core will also help you understand the social and institutional structures of the world in which we live.

Your education in the College of Arts and Sciences will prepare you to make value-centered, ethically-based judgments as it develops and trains you to enter your vocational future as an effective leader for change.

 

Message from the Dean

Dean Donna LaVoie

As Dean of the oldest and largest college at Saint Louis University, it is my pleasure to welcome you to the College of Arts and Sciences and tell you about some of the many accomplishments and successes that make us proud of the work we do. Despite the challenges brought about by the pandemic, we continue to welcome record numbers of freshman and transfer students to the college. These students choose to study from a variety of majors, and we have growth in all our disciplines cutting across the sciences, social sciences and humanities. Our students get to learn from a talented, dedicated and award-winning faculty who challenge our students to engage with their coursework and disciplinary content in innovative ways. For example, Dan Kozlowski, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Communication, is a 2021 recipient of the Emerson Excellence in Teaching Award given out annually to St. Louis area educators who demonstrate significant contributions to student learning. Professor Kozlowski teaches courses in journalism and media ethics as part of our major in communication.

Our faculty and student research continues to be impressive. Faculty across the college, including two faculty from our Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, Amy Wright, Ph.D., and Dan Nikolai, Ph.D., have each received prestigious awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support their scholarship and teaching. Allison Miller, Ph.D., professor of biology, in conjunction with the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center located in St. Louis, received a $12.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation to establish the New Roots for Restoration Biology Integration Institute. Assistant Professor of Music Stephanie Tennill has developed a specialized face mask, the VocalEase Mask, that allows for both COVID protection and the full range of motion and breath support for musicians and stage actors. Ness Sandoval, Ph.D., of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, uses emerging geospatial technology and computational spatial science methods to study social, economic and environmental patterns of inequality. Professor Sandoval also serves as the associate director of SLU’s Geospatial Institute (GeoSLU), a consortium of faculty and students from across the University engaged in geospatial research, training and innovation.

These achievements are only a small sample of the many ways in which the College of Arts and Sciences lives out the larger Saint Louis University mission to pursue truth for the greater glory of God and for the service of humanity. Our success in a period of rapid change and disruption serves as an important reminder that the education we offer, motivated and guided by Jesuit spiritual and intellectual ideals, is an education that provides our students with the tools to meet the unknown demands of the future with confidence. Thank you for your interest in our work in the college and for your support and personal witness to our mission.

In warm appreciation,

Donna J. LaVoie, Ph.D.
Dean and Professor
College of Arts and Sciences

 

Academic Areas

By the Numbers
30+

Academic departments and programs

1930

Undergraduate students in 2023-24

409

Post-baccalaureate students in 2023-24

291

Full-time faculty members in 2023-24


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