Texas A&M College of Liberal Arts

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Texas A&M College of Liberal Arts is one of ten colleges and schools at Texas A&M University and serves undergraduate and graduate students across 13 departments. The College was formally recognized in 1965. A part of the land grant university system, the College of Liberal Arts offers more than 70 undergrad and graduate degree programs.

History

Texas A&M has been teaching liberal arts courses since the institution’s founding in 1876 as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, and the School of Arts and Sciences was established in 1924. However, it wasn’t until 1965 that the College of Liberal Arts was established in its own right. In 1963, university President James Earl Rudder received multiple reports that outlined how to increase both the size and prominence of the university. All the reports recommended the same thing: increasing the presence of the humanities and social sciences.

The Battalion quoted Texas A&M officials at the time as saying, “The rapid urbanization of the state and nation has created a need for persons knowledgeable in this subject area.”

This set into motion the idea of separating the School of Arts and Sciences into two separate colleges—one arts, one sciences—each with a focus on supporting faculty research. Over the next two years, the concept gained momentum and began to materialize.

On July 12, 1965, the Texas Commission on Higher Education approved the reorganization of the School of Arts and Sciences, creating the College of Liberal Arts and the College of Science. Frank W.R. Hubert, who had been dean of the now-defunct school, served as the first Dean of the College of Liberal Arts.

This division came at a time of sweeping changes in the country—which was in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War— and these changes were echoed in the university. Under the presidency of Rudder, women and African-Americans were allowed to matriculate, being a member of the Corps of Cadets was no longer mandatory, and the institution’s name was changed to Texas A&M University. The creation of the College of Liberal Arts added another tier to the upward progress.

When it was first established, the College of Liberal Arts included the School of Business Administration and the departments of Economics, English, Education and Psychology, Health and Physical Education, History and Government, Journalism, Modem Languages, and Philosophy and Humanities. However, the business school soon separated and became a college in 1968, followed by the education department, which became the College of Education 1969.

The College of Liberal Arts is now the second-largest college at Texas A&M, conferring degrees to more than 2,000 students each year. Today, the College is comprised of 13 departments and several interdisciplinary programs, and its institutes and research centers conduct various studies designed to help the world at-large.

Departments

• Anthropology
• Communication
• Economics
• English
• Hispanic Studies
• History
• Interdisciplinary Critical Studies
• International Studies
• Performance Studies
• Philosophy
• Political Science
• Psychological and Brain Sciences
• Sociology

Centers and Institutes

The College of Liberal Arts is a part of research around the world that is completed by the College's centers and institutes. The mentioned centers and institutes include:

• Census Research Data Center
  • The Census Research Center works closely with the U.S. Census Bureau to complete research for the federal statistical system.
• Center for Maritime Archaeology and Conservation
  • The Center for Maritime Archaeology and Conservation completes nautical, maritime, and underwater archaeology research.
• Center for the Study of First Americans
  • The Center for the Study of First Americans pursues research on the first people to enter and settle the Americas during the late Pleistocene.
    • Recent research includes the findings that the cooling of Earth could possibly be caused by volcanic eruptions instead of meteors.
• Glasscock Center for Humanities Research
  • The Glasscock Center for Humanities Research reviews the humanities and completes humanities research at Texas A&M University and beyond.
• Center of Digital Humanities Research
  • The Center of Digital Humanities Research is a part of multidisciplinary research and publications that employ computational methods in the study of literature, history, and culture.
• Public Policy Research Institute
  • The Public Policy Research Institute is a interdisciplinary government and social policy research organization that participates in survey administration, statistical analysis, evaluation, and systems management.
    • Recent research includes six months of tracking Harris County's historic bail reform agreement that governs what happens to people arrested on misdemeanor offenses.
• Race and Ethnic Studies Institute
  • The Race and Ethnic Studies Institute fosters research that considers the contemporary and historical salience of race and ethnicity in human groups.

External links

• College of Liberal Arts Official Website

This article "Texas A&M College of Liberal Arts" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Texas A&M College of Liberal Arts. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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