The School of Liberal Arts seeks to fulfill three educational purposes:

• To free the mind from ignorance and error; 
• To foster self-discovery and personal development; and
• To promote understanding of the world and one's place in it.

Through its educational activities, the School’s faculty:

• Develop students’ capacity to investigate, evaluate, communicate, and reason;
• Establish close relationships with students;
• Set challenging academic standards; and
• Encourage active, collaborative learning.

Through their scholarly activities, the School’s faculty:

• Enrich their teaching; 
• Advance and synthesize knowledge in their disciplines; 
• Apply that knowledge to socially consequential problems; and
• Advance the scholarship of teaching and learning.

Through the study of academic fields in the fine arts, social sciences, and humanities, students:

• Complete a degree in their chosen academic area; 
• Acquire lifelong skills in critical thinking, written expression, logical analysis, information gathering, and interpersonal communication; and
• Become responsible members of the communities in which they learn, live, and work.