75 Years of Liberal Arts

As CSULB celebrates a milestone anniversary this year, we take a look back at the history of the College of Liberal Arts through archival photos, a timeline, and a conversation with one of the college’s most important leaders.

The liberal arts have been a part of CSULB since the university’s inception. From its very first year in 1949, the school has offered a variety of courses in humanities, social sciences, and languages.

Now, 75 years later, the College of Liberal Arts encompasses 29 departments, houses 11 centers and institutes, and offers more than 30 majors and 50 minors. With nearly 700 faculty members and more than 9,000 students, it is one of the largest colleges in the entire California State University system.

The route to the establishment of the CL A featured several twists and turns, mergers and additions, changes and reversions.

Leaders in Humanities and Social Sciences

In the early 1950s, courses at CSULB—then known as Long Beach State College—focused mainly on teacher education, business education, and the liberal arts. Two divisions, as the colleges were then called, housed liberal arts classes: the Division of Social Sciences, which included economics, geography, history, political science, and sociology, and the Division of Language Arts, composed of the English, speech, French, and Spanish departments. Psychology and philosophy were included in their own division with education.

In the ensuing decade, anthropology joined the Division of Social Sciences, and philosophy moved to the Division of Language Arts, which also added journalism, German, Russian, and comparative literature and went through a few name changes before becoming the Division of Humanities in the 1960s.

The two divisions came together, along with the ethnic studies departments, in the late 1960s to create the School of Letters and Science—only to split up again in the late 1970s, becoming the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences and the School of Humanities. It would stay that way for more than 15 years, until the College of Liberal Arts was formed, bringing together the diverse collection of departments the college is today.

Ethnic Studies Pioneers

CSULB’s ethnic studies departments made history as some of the first programs of their kind in the CSU system. The university offered programs to study a diverse range of cultures starting in the late 1960s.

In 1968, the course catalog included an Asian studies program, and the following year, students had the option to earn a certificate in Asian American studies. In 1969, the course catalog included 20 courses under the new Black studies department, which would eventually become Africana studies.

In 1970, a full ethnic studies section first appeared in the course catalog under the School of Letters and Sciences. In addition to Asian American, Chicano and Latino, and Black studies, the section included courses in American Indian studies, and within a few years, students could earn a certificate or minor in the subject.

The Chicano and Latino studies department was officially established and offered as a major in 1972. Two years later, in 1974, bachelor’s degrees in Asian American studies and Africana studies were offered.

A Legacy of Languages

Language instruction has a rich history at CSULB. French and Spanish were offered from the earliest days of the university, and students were invited to major in these languages starting in 1961. One year later, German was established as a major and the first classes in Russian were offered.

In the late 1960s, French, German and Spanish combined to become the foreign languages department. They split again a few years later into three separate departments: French-Italian; German, classics, and Eastern languages; and Spanish-Portuguese. They rejoined in the late 1990s to form the department they are today: Romance, German, Russian Languages and Literature.

And RGRLL isn't the only place students can go to find courses in languages. Classics, a part of the comparative literature department, offers classes in Greek and Latin; the linguistics department provides classes in American Sign Language; and the Asian and Asian American studies department gives students the opportunity to study Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Khmer.