1. Structure And Mission

1.1 Departments and Programs

The College of Arts and Humanities (CAH) is comprised of 11 departments and programs, which represent the disciplines of the arts and humanities. All departments and some programs in CAH offer undergraduate degrees as well as minors that supplement other degree programs. Five departments offer Master's degrees (Art, English, History, Music, Theater Arts).

In addition to its role in providing degree programs, CAH is responsible for many course offerings in the general education program as well as extensive service coursework for the entire university. The College also plays a major role in Central's teacher education programs, offering Bachelor's and Master's degrees for students preparing to be secondary teachers and providing coursework in educational foundations and discipline-specific methods for teacher education majors. Building on a legacy of teaching excellence, college faculty are engaged in research, creative activities and service, involving students in the scholarship and practical applications of their various academic specializations, while making important contributions to the intellectual tradition and to society at large. Departments: Art, Communication, English, Foreign Languages, History, Music, Philosophy, Theatre Arts Interdisciplinary Programs: Asia-Pacific Studies, Film and Video Studies, Latin American Studies

1.2 Administrative Staff

The Dean of the College of Arts and Humanities is the chief academic, budgetary, and personnel officer of the College. The Dean's primary responsibilities include personnel matters (hiring, reappointment, tenure, promotion, review, mentoring, and communication with faculty); budget; policy design; program oversight and approval; grant administration; liaison with the upper administration and the public; supervision of the Dean's office staff; fund raising; and strategic planning.

The Associate Dean's primary responsibilities include general support for and advice to the Dean; administration of summer session; curriculum oversight and review; University Center liaison; student matters; data collection and analysis; handling assessment, accreditation, and accountability; and strategic planning support.

The Administrative Assistant maintains records pertaining to budget, personnel, and all other College matters, acts in a support role to the Dean and Associate Dean, and supervises the secretary/receptionist and other office help.

The Development Officer is responsible for coordinating all donor and alumni contact for the College in order to facilitate support for departments and programs through contributions of time and resources.

1.3 CAH Mission Statement

The mission of the College of Arts and Humanities is to advance knowledge, foster intellectual inquiry, and cultivate creative endeavor among faculty and students through teaching, research, scholarship, artistry, and public and professional involvement. All the components of our mission--teaching, scholarship/creativity, and service--are integral ventures that support and cross-fertilize each other, enriching the educational experience of our students.

We in the College of Arts and Humanities, in partnership with other academic units, strive to act as stewards of the disciplines in our domain and of the liberal educational core of the university program. Through our versatile offerings in the fine and performing arts, communication and the humanities, and the Douglas Honors College, we seek to enhance understanding of and appreciation for the complex physical, cultural, and imaginative worlds of human existence, and to infuse in our students a lifelong thirst for knowledge and capacity for aesthetic growth. In addition to fostering learning across the span of academic fields and subjects in our domain, we take seriously our responsibility to help people develop their powers of speaking, writing, reasoning, and creativity, thus equipping them for the challenges of contemporary life, and enabling them to take their places in an informed citizenry.

1.4 CAH Departmental Mission Statements

Art Department

The mission of the Department of Art is the practice and the teaching of art. The Department of Art's mission embraces the College of Arts and Humanities' emphasis on the enrichment of our students' educational experiences. The Department strives to develop and sustain our students' professional aspirations in Graphic Design, Art Education and the Studio Arts. Through our programs we seek to identify the rich creative and intellectual potential of students as they awaken to the lifelong value placed on critical and analytical skills. It is the Department's belief that an art education builds the expertise necessary for students seeking to assume their respective roles as practitioners, educators, and informed patrons of the visual arts.

Communication Department

The Mission of the Communication Department is guided by that of the university in a number of ways including its emphasis on the dramatic growth in communication channels and media which will be an integral part of life in the new millennium. There is also the emphasis in the university's mission on the culture, the diversity of the culture. Communication not only reflects its culture but it shapes it. The Communication Department works to prepare its students to become active participants in communicating within and in the shaping of modern culture; a modern culture with increased diversity. The university mission also guides the Communication Department through its reference to students who become skilled communicators and who have developed their abilities to analyze and synthesize information.

English Department

The Department of English, in accordance with the university's motto Docendo Discimus, is committed to improving our students' and our own writing, reading, reasoning, and communication skills in a mutually enhancing environment of teaching and learning. As teachers and students working together, we develop literary awareness within the larger goal of fostering human, social and cultural understanding. We promote interpretive abilities which enable us, by developing and applying our knowledge of the powers and possibilities of the language, to recognize and share insights regarding the characteristics and significance of our individual and cultural expressions. As teachers of future teachers, we combine our immediate aim of developing critical literacy and literary awareness with current training and practice in research-supported pedagogies. We also help prepare general majors for careers requiring oral and written communication skills, such as law, publishing, librarianship, and journalism.

We are committed, as well, to disciplinary, community, and professional enhancement. Our scholarly and artistic projects contribute to the body of ideas and expressions which constitute our disciplinary knowledge base. As part of a regional cultural center, we provide classes and sponsor literary, artistic, and cultural events that feature our faculty and guest lecturers and artists. Our graduate programs in literature and teaching provide professional development for students seeking careers as writers, scholars, and educators. We also support, strongly and directly, the development of excellence in K-12 education by serving as advisors, consultants, and directors for projects designed to enhance the quality and effectiveness of public school education.

Within a friendly, supportive atmosphere, we strive for excellence in our teaching, our curriculum, our professional and artistic productivity, and our work both inside and outside the university. We feel that our subject matter--language, literature, and pedagogy--is absolutely central to the culture at large; conveying knowledge about this subject, therefore, is at once deeply important and exhilarating, connecting us at once to the long tradition of study in the humanities and to the rapidly changing world of the last decade in the millennium.

The English department mission statement embraces the principles which constitute the university's mission, including commitments to facilitative teaching through small class sizes and attentive advising practices; to a curriculum which addresses the intellectual, social, and ethical development of each student through the development of critical literacy and literary awareness; to an ongoing participation in and contributions to Central's role as a cultural resource center dedicated to improving the quality of life for the community; and to high-quality programs which provide theoretical and practical education in language and literature to a diverse population of students.

Foreign Languages Department

The Foreign Language Department is one of several departments, which together form the liberal arts "core" curriculum. It serves those students who are admitted to the University without the required two years of a foreign language in high school, by allowing them to make up the deficiency here. It also provides credits toward the humanities breadth requirement. In addition, and at least as important, is its role in adding to the students understanding of the world community in which we live. All courses taught in the department have a strong cultural component. The department also provides courses for interdepartmental programs and contributes to interdepartmental master's degree programs.

For students whose interest in foreign languages goes beyond satisfying admissions, general education and graduation requirements, we offer a wide range of language, literature and civilization and culture courses which allow a student to pursue a major or minor in Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Russian and Spanish. Offerings in American Sign Language are quite new, with the major and minor under development. The completion of a major in some of these languages requires up to a year of study abroad.

History Department

The broadest mission of the History Department is consistent with the mission of the university: "To confront students with the ambiguities of contemporary existence, conscious of themselves as members of a pluralistic society, capable of skilled communication and the ability to analyze and synthesize information, and to serve as responsible stewards of the earth." (CWU Catalog, 1996-98, p. 11) The History Department's more specific mission is to convey historical knowledge in the broadest sense to the students of Central Washington University and to the citizens of Washington State through offering introductory history courses in the university's general education program, by offering undergraduate and graduate programs leading to teaching and other careers, by sponsoring the state History Day program, and offering lectures, newspaper articles and publications to public fora on items of current interest. The department emphasizes the history of the major geographical areas of the world and participates in the Asia/Pacific Studies program, in order to prepare students for the internationalism of the twenty-first century. It also participates in other interdisciplinary programs that emphasize diversity and a variety of special interests.

Music Department

The Department of Music of Central Washington University functions as the component of a comprehensive liberal arts institution that provides undergraduate and graduate education in the musical arts. Recognizing the central role of arts education in human development, this department stimulates creative vitality while providing a nurturing environment for musical, academic, and personal growth. Through course offerings, research and performance opportunities, the Department of Music prepares students for careers as professional musicians and music educators who will expand the horizons of the profession and have a positive impact on schools, communities and their artistic discipline; provides experiences for those who wish to continue their musical activities as an avocation; and cultivates an awareness of the educational, cultural, and aesthetic aspects of music as a means of human expression.

Philosophy Department

Philosophy is "the love of wisdom." It is not a body of doctrines to be learned but an ongoing process of inquiry into questions which express people's deepest concerns, such as the meaning of human existence, the nature of reality, the criteria of knowledge, and the grounds of human conduct. Central's Philosophy Department offers courses in the thought of great philosophers of the past and present, both Western and non-Western, and in the principal topical fields of philosophic investigation, such as ethics, logic, theory of knowledge, and philosophy of religion. The faculty, often in the company of students, conduct philosophic research and present their results to their professional peers as well as to wider audiences. The students acquire skills and techniques which enable them to understand the philosophies of other people and to philosophize on their own.

Theatre Arts Department

The mission of the Department of Theatre Arts complements the mission of Central Washington University. The department will provide a total theatre arts program for students seeking baccalaureate and masters degrees and will welcome students seeking both education and training for theatre careers or a basic understanding of the arts for life enrichment. Through public presentations by its students and faculty, the department will enrich the region with engaging performances of plays, musicals, and operas.