Mission
From its central position in an
international research university, the College of Arts and
Sciences invites students to explore the broad spectrum of
human knowledge and takes pride in its capacity to respond to
the particular intellectual needs of those who join it.
The College thrives on the diversity of scholars and students whose interests it sustains and whose intellectual goals it unites.
the particular intellectual needs of those who join it.
The College thrives on the diversity of scholars and students whose interests it sustains and whose intellectual goals it unites.
The College is committed to offering a
broad education that will lay a durable foundation for critical
and creative thinking. The College’s goal is to help
students to become knowledgeable about the world and the
complexities of today’s society; aware of moral, ethical
and social issues; prepared to exercise intellectual leadership
and enlivened by the use of their minds. We believe that
students should explore fundamental approaches to the
acquisition and interpretation of knowledge through
introduction to substantive bodies of current thought in the
natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. Equally
important, they should learn to understand and evaluate the
sources and methods from which this knowledge derives. In this
way, they can be led to appreciate the contingency of all
knowledge and to participate in the ongoing excitement of
intellectual discovery that is at the heart of the College.
We challenge our students to develop the
skills of analysis and communication that will enable them to
perceive pattern in complexity, render reasoned judgments, make
wise choices under conditions of uncertainty and join with
others in the pursuit of common endeavors. They should, for
example, be able to write and speak effectively as well as to
analyze quantitative data and to use another people’s
language as one means of access to the diversity of
contemporary and historical culture.
A student's emerging interests and
talents find expression through an organized program of study
in a major field. In the specialized context of the major,
students investigate the traditions and contemporary status of
an established branch of knowledge. The structured study of a
discipline complements the general exploration of our
intellectual heritage to provide the balance of educational
breadth and depth to which the College is committed. Study of
the arts and sciences provides a solid basis for advanced
scientific and scholarly research, for subsequent training in
the professions and for the informed exercise of the rights and
responsibilities of citizenship.
There is no single or easy path to the
benefits of liberal education. A program of study must be
shaped as a student grows. But the special strengths of the
University of Pennsylvania—its combination of academic
and professional excellence, its diverse and interdisciplinary
tradition, its active
Academic Integrity
Academic integrity is the core value of a
university. It is only through the honest production and
criticism of scholarship that we become educated and create
knowledge. Admission to Penn signifies a student’s entry
into this community of scholars and willingness to abide by our
commonly agreed-upon rules for the creation of knowledge.
Academic work represents not only what we
have learned about a subject but also how we have learned it.
Methods have been adopted so that others may trace our
footsteps, verify what we have learned and build upon our work.
All members of the academic community are expected to meet
these obligations of scholarship. We are all expected to be
honest about the nature of our academic work.
The Academic Framework:
The Curriculum of the College of Arts and Sciences
The Curriculum of the College of Arts and Sciences
The College’s curriculum leads
students to acquire a general education across the wide range
of the arts and sciences and specialized education in a major.
The faculty of the School of Arts and Sciences believes that
these components together constitute an education best suited
to enabling intelligent people to live fulfilling and
productive lives in the 21st century.
The General Education Curriculum
The College's new General Education
Curriculum, which takes effect starting with the Class of 2010,
has two broad objectives. It seeks to educate students in some
general skills or approaches to knowledge and to engage them in
the intellectual work of the disciplines in a variety of fields
across the arts and sciences. In this general outline, it does
not differ from the previous curriculum, which has been in
place in the College since 1987. What differs is the sharpened
focus both in the constitution of the courses that play a role
in the curriculum and in the purpose of the curriculum as
articulated for both faculty and students who teach and learn
within it.
In following this curriculum, students
are guided by two kinds of degree requirements corresponding to
these two objectives. One deals with foundational approaches
and the other with specific disciplines and fields of
knowledge. Within any given course, these two—an approach
and a
