Our Essence: The CAS Mission Statement
The College of Arts and Sciences is the academic foundation of Fairfield University. It serves its students, faculty, and staff, as well as the University’s other schools and the larger community, through teaching, research, and service in the Jesuit tradition. In classrooms, studios and laboratories, on campus and around the globe, our faculty and students work together, calling on the vital intellectual values of analysis, reflection, discernment and imagination to understand the past, engage our present and shape our personal and collective futures.
The College challenges students to learn and grow, personally and professionally, through departmental and interdisciplinary majors and minors, as well as graduate and continuing education programs. It provides an integrative immersion in the liberal arts through the breadth and depth of the Core Curriculum and its cross-disciplinary Core Pathways. It sponsors a host of academic and cultural activities that connect the University to the broader world and promote life-long learning. In all its endeavors, the College encourages openness to difference and a willingness to view the world from diverse perspectives.
As a community of scholars, the College engages in innovative research and professional activities in a spirit of collaboration across disciplines, in order to advance knowledge and solve real-world problems. It fosters and mentors student research to support the next generation of informed and articulate scholars, thinkers, and public intellectuals. College faculty lead national and global academic communities and demonstrate their commitment to the public good through scholarship and creative work.
As a community of educated citizens, the College responds to the Jesuit call to be women and men for others by seeking to instill in its students a habit of service and a life-long commitment to social justice in their personal and professional lives.
We undertake this journey together -- exploring the complexities of the human condition, experiencing the wonders of artistic creation, investigating the intricacies of the universe, and reflecting on the mysteries of the sacred -- so that we may all do our part to promote a just and peaceful world. In all that we do, the College of Arts and Sciences affirms the enduring importance of a liberal arts education in the Jesuit tradition.
