|
Students who are working toward a BA degree in
LAS may elect a major in a distributed studies
program. It is a degree that is structured
out of courses offered by two or more programs of
study. There are two approaches to a
distributed studies degree: structured
programs and programs built from stand-alone
minors.
Structured Program Options: These
include options in business economics, justice
studies, and public administration. Check
with department advisors before enrolling in this
program. Business Economics:
Department of Economics - Dr. Dale DeBoer,
Chairperson (please add link to Economics
site); Justice Studies or Public
Administration: Department of
Political Science - Dr. Jim Null, Chairperson
(please add link to Political Science).
Individualized Program Options: Students
may design a distributed studies major around a
core curriculum provided by the following
stand-alone minors:
Energy
Science
Ethnic
Studies
French
German
Leadership
Studies
Pre-Law
Professional
Writing
Sustainable Development
Women's
Studies
Please contact the department of the program
you are interested in for further
information.
Mission
The College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences at
Colorado Springs (UCCS) is a community of
teaching scholars whose mission is to advance an
understanding of the human condition and the
natural world and communicate this understanding
to the people of Colorado, and the world at
large.
The College (LAS) affirms and accepts the ideal
purposes and traditional goals of all great
universities: the creation, interpretation,
dissemination, and application of knowledge. LAS
strives to maintain these goals while formulating
and delivering innovative and creative
programs. LAS provides collaborative
programs that enrich the community, promote the
creation of a vibrant and creative cultural life,
strengthen and sustain a productive and
responsible economic sector, facilitate the
solution of community and regional problems,
increase the safety, health and welfare of
individuals and groups, sustain scientific and
technological innovation, and enhance the
understanding and practice of civic duty and
responsibility.
LAS provides breadth of instruction for all
students of the UCCS campus, including those in
professional schools and colleges. This breadth
exposes all students to the challenge, excitement
and demands of clear self expression, analysis,
reasoning, comparison, experimentation, and
awareness of alternative perspectives. The
College also provides depth in specific academic
disciplines for majors within the college. This
specialization is important not only for the
skills, perspectives, and knowledge gained, but
is also the key to success in subsequent
education and careers.
The College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences
offers bachelor's degrees in a full range of
traditional liberal arts majors and minors, and
selected graduate programs. We also offer
certificate programs.
Diversity
The
concept of diversity-by its very definition-is
highly variable. Within the context of a
liberal arts curriculum, we define diversity as
"differentness", a multiplicity of attitudes and
perspectives, beliefs and variation. A
positive, proactive attitude towards diversity
within an academic context, reflects a commitment
to inclusiveness, variability and the celebration of
"difference." Political definitions of
diversity are necessarily different from
cultural, geographic or economic
definitions. References to diversity may
reflect allusion to individuals of ethnic and
racial minority groups or protected classes;
others include issues of gender, sexual
orientation and disability. We embrace a broad
definition of diversity, inclusive of the
differentness of populations, including gender,
ethnicity, culture and other attributes that make
groups unique or different. Diversity has come to
reflect the study of U.S. racial and ethnic
minorities; however, the inclusive definition of
diversity also embraces the study of
international and global perspectives, a
culturally pluralistic and multicultural world,
increasingly referred to as our "global
village."
LASis committed to diversity in its
curriculum as well as its faculty, staff and
student body. The incorporation of
diversity into coursework is a priority, and the
growth of such programs as Ethnic Studies and
Women's Studies is testimonial to both faculty
and student interest. As a college, it is our
desire to expand and enhance these programmatic
areas. For that reason, we hope-at some
point in the future-to have sufficient demand to
change the minors in Ethnic Studies and Women's
Studies into majors. Additionally, the
college has added a diversity requirement to our
College General Education requirements. The
infusion and inclusion of matters of diversity
into all aspects of the curriculum, where
feasible, is reflective of our desire to include,
rather than isolate, matters of diversity into
all College coursework.
Faculty
Diversity
Increasing minority faculty in the
classroom is crucial in diversifying the campus,
and this may be accomplished in a number of ways
(funding will be necessary for
some).
-
LAS is committed to hiring faculty
who can contribute to the Ethnic Studies
Program, as well as the Women's Studies
Program. Where possible, new
faculty hires will include the ability to
contribute to these programs.
Particularly in the social sciences and
humanities, faculty whose areas of expertise
articulate with the areas of Ethnic Studies
and Women's Studies will be recruited, with
part of the workload to include teaching at
least one course per year in one of these two
areas (or a course in the discipline that is
cross listed with Ethnic Studies or Women's
Studies).
-
LAS recommends that the campus set aside funds for a new position each year
targeted for minority recruitment, i.e. an
"opportunity hire", in the areas of the
College's greatest hiring needs. While this
is desired at the CU-system level, we
recognize that we must determine our campus'
position irrespective of system wide
financial investment. Towards that end,
the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs
could request of the campus funding
for a new position that was allocated to a
College expressing the greatest
rationale-including departmental programmatic
need-in a given year. Perhaps this new
line would be rotated so that all Colleges
can "take turns" in focusing recruitment
efforts on minority faculty. The reason
that we recommend that this be accomplished
at the campus level is because of a) the need
for the entire campus-not just LAS-to
diversify the faculty, and b) because the
College's budget does not contain such
flexibility at the moment, although it may in
the future.
-
When fiscally feasible, the
College would like to be able to
authorize faculty recruitment to be sought
competitively by departments who wish to
actively recruit minority faculty. For
example, a social science position could be
authorized and advertised to especially
target minority recruitments, that social
science departments could collectively
advertise, placing the line in the unit that
was able to successfully recruit.
This plan would require a set-aside or
reallocation, reassignment of salary savings,
or shifting lines from one department to
another. This goal will need to wait
until urgent faculty hiring needs have been
minimally met, and until the College's budget
is fiscally sound.
-
Where possible, LAS will
strive to recruit minority faculty for both
tenure-track positions as well as non-tenure
track faculty lines, including visiting
assistant professors, instructors, and
lecturers. We recognize the difficulty
of relocating any faculty for a one-year
limited appointment; nevertheless, it is our
commitment to make every effort to identify
persons of color to fill temporary
positions. Proactive efforts-such as
using the minority students doctoral
directory-as well as recruitment at other
venues that increases our likelihood of
identifying outstanding minority candidates,
will be our policy.
With regard
to hiring practices, the College of Letters, Arts
and Sciences-consistent with CU Regents
policy-does not discriminate on any basis.
Faculty searches are guided by the commitment to
be affirmative and proactive in our search for
diverse candidates, and we maintain our
commitment to hiring the most qualified
candidates. Proactive ways of increasing
the inclusion of racial or ethnic minorities in
candidate pools include recruitment of
individuals through the Minority Doctoral
Students Directory, advertising in publications
that may be specially relevant to particular
groups, targeting institutions that serve large
numbers of minority students, e.g. historically
Black colleges and universities, schools that
serve large numbers of Native American or Latino
students,
etc.
Staff
Diversity
The College is committed to diversifying
its staff, as well as its faculty and student
body. This has been difficult, given the very low
turnover of staff positions in the College. It is
our commitment, however, to recruit persons of
color to join the LAS staff as positions become
available. The College has submitted requests in
every budget cycle to increase its staff, and we
will make every effort to recruit staff of color.
Because of Colorado Personnel policies and
procedures, lists of qualified individuals for
open staff positions leaves very little
opportunity for advertisement or recruitment of
persons of color to fill vacant
positions.
Student
Diversity
The
College is committed to increasing the diversity
of its faculty, staff and students.
Minority student enrollment in LAS is consistent
with or greater than percentages of minority
students for the campus, although this is not
surprising since LAS is the largest College. We
seek to continue to improve our recruitment and
retention of minority students; towards this end,
several initiatives are
recommended:
-
For
the campus in general, and LAS in particular,
scholarship funding is needed to assist all
students. Special efforts are being
made within the TLE Capital Campaign goals to
identify scholarship dollars to provide
support for minority students. A special
flyer should be printed for the CU Foundation
which earmarks a fund designated to assist
minority or disadvantaged students, in this
case, for the College of Letters, Arts, and
Sciences. Efforts towards these ends
are presently underway, with particular
assistance of the LAS Advisory Board and LAS
Science Advisory Board.
-
Enhancing recruitment requires
incorporating broader geographic parameters
in our efforts to diversify our student
body. Recruitment from other regions of
the United States (and hopefully one day
internationally) is desirable if we are to
increase the numbers of underrepresented
minorities (and international students) on
campus.
|
