Purpose Statement The History Program at USCB is dedicated to cultivating in its students a broad cultural and historical. • • • • • •
awareness and the ability to read carefully, think critically, and write effectively. The program encourages students to develop a broad perspective on the past alongside a deeper understanding of at least one particular period and set of issues. By helping students to investigate, nurture, and integrate their historical, philosophical, political, ideological, ethical, and emotional responses to the world, the study of history helps students to become complete and well-rounded individuals. This is why the study of history has been central to Western education for well over two thousand years.
Program Goals The History program seeks to accomplish the following objectives: • • • • •
Produce graduates who read, think, and write carefully, critically, and creatively. Produce graduates who know when, why, and how to conduct historical research. Produce graduates who are well-rounded and well prepared to contribute to their future work environments and society and to grow personally and professionally throughout their careers. Provide a solid foundation for students who wish to pursue graduate studies in History. Establish a learning environment in the History discipline that contributes to cooperation and collaboration with the local community in the region and the state.
Students who graduate with a B.A. in History should … • • • • • • •
be effective critical thinkers, analyzers, and close readers of historical literature. Students should be sensitive to argument and historical period. be strong writers, able to formulate a thesis, organize a complex idea, support it with appropriate evidence, and render it in coherent, grammatical, and properly punctuated written English. have a broad historical understanding of the development of several societies. understand the political, social, intellectual and aesthetic trends characteristic of major historical periods and major literary and artistic movements. know how to conduct historical research using primary sources.