2015 Dean’s Report: Empowering Opportunity and Impact

2014/2015 COLLEGE STATS

98 Percent Graduate placement

45 Percent Graduates who have completed study abroad or study away

28 Percent Graduates who have completed internships

#1

Study abroad college
(80 programs, 40 countries, 6 continents)

1,965

Current major students

TOP

MSU Faculty Awards such as the Beal, Teacher-Scholar, and Excellence-in-Teaching Awards

52

Majors & Programs

IMPACT

National Faculty Awards such as the Ford Foundation, Fulbright, and Lilly

40,910

CAL Alumni

Dean Elizabeth Simmons

A MESSAGE FROM THE DEAN

“The arts, letters, and humanities sustain the symbolic, emotional, and cognitive structures required for analysis, imagination, and experimentation. They foster innovation by focusing attention on the creative process, emerging issues, and new questions. To succeed in a challenging future, all Spartans will need the skills and sensibilities nurtured by the arts and humanities.”
ELIZABETH H. SIMMONS
ACTING DEAN, COLLEGE OF ARTS & LETTERS

the spartan statue

MISSION

The College of Arts & Letters (CAL) is a vital force that puts the arts, letters, humanities, and culture into action to create meaningful impact in our world.

We bridge from august tradition to cutting-edge innovation. We leverage new opportunities and technologies in pursuit of age-old humanistic questions.  We infuse arts and humanities approaches into the campus community, creating a culturally vibrant environment that enhances students’ learning. Above all, our degree programs create synergy between the life of the mind and tangible, transferable skills, launching students onto exciting career trajectories.

students working together on laptops

VISION

Shaping Intentional Lives, Cultivating Creativity, Advancing Language Proficiency and Global Cultural Understanding
In response to profound geopolitical, social, cultural, and economic changes, today’s university must not only prepare students to live and work in a dramatically changing global environment, but also provide them with the skills needed to understand these changes, their impact on social justice and their imprint on the fabric of our cultural environment. The strength of the American higher education system rests on educating effective problem-solvers who will bring creativity as well as careful argument, innovation as well as tradition, expression as well as introspection to their work and to their lives. To this end, CAL engages students and cultivates critical and creative thinkers who address the challenge of becoming world citizens by contributing to the development of a more humane world.