New College of Arts and Letters replaces CoCa and LLSS

Meg Perry, Staff Reporter

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In June of 2016, the University of Toledo Board of Trustees approved the creation of the new College of Arts and Letters, which officially opened on July 1.

Jamie Barlowe, Dean of the College of Arts and Letters, explained that the new college is a mergence of the former College of Communication, and the Arts and the former College of Languages, Literature and Social Sciences. The name of the new merged college was chosen by the faculty and students of the two former colleges.

“The new name represents the combination of the visual and performing arts, the humanities and the social sciences,” said Jerry Van Hoy, Associate Professor of Sociology; Co­Director, Program of Law & Social Thought; Director, Master of Liberal Studies Program.

During the 2015­16 school year, President Gaber initiated a discussion that led to the colleges coming together to create the new College of Arts and Letters. The College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics remains an independent college and is not part of Arts and Letters.

“The College of Arts and Letters serves the 1,732 undergraduate students in 29 programs and 223 graduate students in 17 programs, who are majoring in the arts, humanities, social sciences and interdisciplinary studies, as well as more than 14,000 students enrolled in general education courses taught by faculty in the college,” Barlowe said.

The creation of the College of Arts and Letters, Van Hoy explained, will make it easier for students to double major across the arts, humanities, social sciences and interdisciplinary programs, because they are all within the same college. Students will also have a more diverse set of faculty in the college to use as resources.

“This means that there are more faculty to help with student research and creative projects, honors theses and study abroad opportunities,” Van Hoy said. “By combining resources from two colleges into one college, all students in Arts and Letters will benefit from more experiential learning opportunities, new courses and perhaps new majors.”

Thus far, there has been the creation of a new major in Media Communication and a new major in Disability Studies, which, Barlowe explained, is the first of its kind in the U.S.

“We have many experiential learning opportunities for students in the College of Arts and Letters, and the School of Visual and Performing Arts, including more than 100 internship opportunities, study abroad, service learning, problem­based learning in our new interactive classroom called the Idea Lab, research, theatre productions, music performances, film production, and news and sports broadcasting.” Barlowe said.

According to Barlowe, faculty and staff began the work of merging the Colleges of Communication and Arts and Languages, Literature and Social Sciences in the fall of 2015, and the work continued throughout the last academic year. The Arts and Letters College Council is now working on creating a new constitution for the college.

“The new College of Arts and Letters allows us to promote and expand cross­disciplinary relationships and build on current programs and accomplishments that will benefit students.” Barlowe said.

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New College of Arts and Letters replaces CoCa and LLSS