Arts and Humanities

The College of Arts and Humanities is home to six academic departments with ten academic programs. Our 1,063 students share in experiences that promote cross-cultural understanding, empathetic initiative, and innovative productivity. The arts and humanities disciplines drive a desire to explore what it means to be human. Students articulate values, define identity, and interpret discourse as they navigate a rigorous, intellectually challenging curricula. The College is ideal for makers, thinkers, readers, writers, and actors who aspire to hone their craft and gain greater depth in their artistic, civic, and scholarly pursuits.

Students in the Arts and Humanities contribute to a vibrant campus environment through numerous scholarly, professional and creative enterprises. I encourage you to pick up a copy of The Gatepost, our award-winning weekly student newspaper; to attend a play performed by our Communications Arts theater company in the Dwight Performing Arts Center; to visit a senior thesis exhibition highlighting work by students in Graphic Design, Integrated Visual Media, or Studio Art; or to experience the annual FSU Fashion Show featuring costume and apparel from students in our Fashion Design. Our students also take advantage of FSU’s opportune location and its affiliations to visit cultural attractions. English majors travel yearly to “literary Concord”; History majors attend field trips to institutions such as the New Bedford Whaling Museum; World Languages majors participate in historical tours of Boston's Chinatown neighborhood; and students across the disciplines are able to visit the Danforth Museum in Framingham and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, courtesy of our institutional memberships.

The College of Arts and Humanities’ superb faculty exemplify the teacher-scholar model. Professors from the College are engaged in a broad range of compelling research and creative activities. Many have received grants from highly competitive sources such as the Fulbright Scholar program and the National Endowment for the Humanities. While their individual scholarly achievements distinguish them within their fields of expertise, they are equally motivated to excel in the classroom as well. Faculty in the College of Arts and Humanities provide students with unique opportunities for experiential learning, service learning, community activism, internships, and study abroad. In their teaching, our professors cultivate an atmosphere that encourages imagination and individual vision, while fostering the intellectual adaptability and analytical thinking skills necessary for communicating in a complex and shifting contemporary society.