The College of Liberal Arts

Gloria C. Johnson, Ph.D., Dean
112 Hubert Crouch Hall
Telephone 615-963-5971

Mission Statement

The College of Liberal Arts offers academic programs designed to engage students in the study of human experience and human potential and to equip them for creatively, critically, and collaboratively shaping their lives, careers, and communities.

Core Values

Integrative Learning: Liberal Arts programs recognize education as an inherently connected, cumulative, and student-centered experience in which learning occurs across courses and across disciplines.

Creativity: Liberal Arts programs value and nurture originality, imagination, discovery, the active creation and appreciation of beauty, and the unique voice of each student. Rather than providing “training”, they seek to inspire students and draw inspiration from them.

Responsibility: Liberal Arts programs recognize the development of integrity, ethical thinking, and social and environmental awareness as essential goals of a college education.

Critical Thinking and Reasoned Judgment: Liberal Arts programs recognize discourse and the construction of knowledge as human activities requiring the questioning of assumptions, logical reasoning, analysis and synthesis, the appreciation of multiple perspectives, self-awareness, empathetic capacity, and civility.

Professional Competency: Liberal Arts programs value, model, and cultivate excellence in written and oral communication, task organization, collaboration, quantitative thinking, and literacy in information technology, equipping students with transferrable professional skills.

Student Service and Support: Liberal Arts programs recognize the quality of the individual student’s educational experience as the primary measure of their effectiveness and are committed to the highest standards of service for both traditional and non-traditional students in curriculum design, course offering, instruction, learning assessment, co-curricular activities, and academic and career advisement.

Accreditation

Individual academic programs in the College of Liberal Arts are accredited by the national, regional, and state agencies which accredit programs. The Art program is accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD), and the Music program is accredited by the National Association of Schools of Music (NASM). All teacher certification programs in the College are approved by the Tennessee Department of Education. In addition, the teacher certification program of the University is accredited by the National Council on the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE).

Teacher Education

The College of Liberal Arts offers Teacher Certification curricula in the following endorsement areas: Art, Elementary Education (with concentrations in language arts and social studies, science and mathematics, and child development and learning), English, Government, History, and Music.

All students who seek certification in any of these programs must be formally admitted through the College of Education, usually in the sophomore year. Admission requires a 2.75 cumulative grade point average and a passing score on the Praxis Exams. For a complete list of admission and retention requirements in the Teacher Certification Program, see College of Education in the Catalog. Admission is a prerequisite for upper-level certification courses. Students interested in certification should consult the teacher certification advisor in the program of their choice.

General Education Core Requirements

Students in Liberal Arts must satisfy all of the general education requirements. Individual departments may require that their students fulfill these requirements in particular ways, such as by specifying which courses may be used to satisfy the literature, social science, natural science, or humanities requirements. Students should consult the departments’ requirements in their program descriptions in this section of the Catalog. In addition to the core education requirements for all students in the University, students in the College of Liberal Arts must take Service to Leadership (UNIV 1000 ) as part of their general education.

For students seeking teacher certification, the requirements for admission are those for the Teacher Education Program contained in the College of Education section.

The College wants to assist students toward completing degree requirements as quickly as possible. It recognizes that it can best achieve this goal by ensuring that students proceed toward the degree in a logical fashion so that they first remove all deficiencies that prevent them from taking college-level courses and then meet general education requirements and lower-level requirements in their major programs before embarking on their upper-division programs.

Graduation Requirements

As well as satisfying the University requirements for graduation, all graduates of the College must earn at least a C in all courses which are used to satisfy the program requirements in the major (as opposed to the general education requirements and electives). Required courses in the major program in which less than a C is earned must be repeated until the minimum grade is earned. As part of University requirements, all students must earn at least a C in Freshman English (ENGL 1010 and ENGL 1020 ).

All graduates of the Tennessee Board of Regents institutions are required to take an examination or examinations in the academic year in which they graduate to measure the effectiveness of their core curriculum and their major program. At the present time, all graduating seniors are required to take the ETS Proficiency Profile examination. Students should register for this test through their departments in the academic year in which they graduate. The test is a graduation requirement, and failure to take it will delay a student’s graduation. Foreign-born students whose first language is not English are exempt from the test, but they must present documentation to support their claim to exemption.

To minimize the likelihood that last-minute problems will delay students’ graduation, they should thoroughly familiarize themselves with all departmental, College, and University degree requirements, and stay in frequent contact with their advisors. The College requires that students fill out an application for graduation with the Records Office and complete a Senior Standing Form with their advisors at least one semester before the semester of anticipated graduation in order to determine their remaining degree requirements. The deadline for filing this application is posted in departmental areas.

Students should look for notice of this deadline and must meet the deadline. They must also take the initiative for informing their department of their intent to graduate. At the time of applying for graduation, students must either have expunged all Incomplete grades from their record or submit a copy of a signed agreement with the instructor of any class in which an Incomplete is outstanding; this agreement must specify the date by which the Incomplete will be removed. If students do not graduate in the semester for which they apply, they must subsequently re-file for graduation.