The College of Arts and Sciences offers its students the cultural, intellectual, and economic resources of the San Francisco Bay Area and its location on the Pacific Rim to prepare leaders who will fashion a more humane and just world.
Within the framework of the Jesuit and Catholic tradition, the College offers both undergraduate and graduate students the knowledge and skills needed to succeed as persons and professionals, and the values and sensitivity necessary to be men and women for others.
Coming from a variety of traditions, the faculty of the College offer a diversity of perspectives, experiences and traditions as essential components of a quality education in our global context.They model excellence as the standard for teaching,scholarship, creative expression and service to the community.
Students and faculty of the College experience learning as a humanizing, social activity and benefit from a culture of service that respects and promotes the dignity of every person. Faculty and students alike share the freedom and responsibility to pursue truth and follow evidence to its conclusions, to reflect on the moral dimension of every significant human choice. The students and faculty of the College together form a diverse,socially responsible learning community of high quality scholarship and academic rigor sustained by a faith that does justice.
College Requirements for All Majors in Arts and Sciences
In addition to the University Core Curriculum requirement,the College requires that all candidates for the baccalaureate degree in Arts and in Sciences meet the Rhetoric and Composition requirement (see the Communication Studies section for specific requirements) and the foreign language requirement described below.
Foreign Language Requirement
Why study language? Because language is the human being’s distinctive characteristic, and virtually all intellectual activities and forms of social intercourse depend on it. Language links us with our culture and with one another; it mirrors and constructs our experiences; it makes possible the full spectrum of human endeavors. In the broadest sense,a primary objective of the language requirement is to promote an awareness of the essential role language plays in our daily lives. Beyond this, the language requirement:
- exposes the inner workings of both one’s native language and the language studied;
- lays a foundation for course work in literature and in other disciplines;
- provides opportunities for personal experience with other languages and cultures;
- enhances professional and career training;
- promotes self awareness and sensitivity to others;
Both the University of San Francisco and the broader San Francisco/Bay Area communities provide an ideal environment for developing an understanding of a variety of cultures. The language requirement encourages students to reshape themselves as sensitive, participating members of a broader multicultural and multilingual community. This participation has many dimensions, and USF students are encouraged to explore them through course work, extracurricular and community activities, as well as study abroad.
Because language lays a foundation on which further academic education is built, another objective of the language requirement is to contextualize and integrate course work in other disciplines. Students are encouraged to approach the study of African, American, Asian,and European contributions to human civilization which are culturally and linguistically grounded, and students are encouraged to approach the study of these contributions from within the culture in question,rather than as outsiders. The language requirement provides the point of departure for the development of proficiency adequate to academic and professional needs, and promotes the multidisciplinary study of cultures and societies both outside the United States and within our increasingly multicultural communities.
Whether investigating the past, analyzing or constructing the present, or forecasting the future, knowledge of languages and cultures privileges the University of San Francisco student.
Requirements
All candidates for the Bachelor’s degree in the College of Arts and Sciences whose native language is English must complete a foreign language requirement. Arts majors must complete the requirement by satisfactorily completing one of the following courses:FREN - 201,GERM - 201, GREK - 102, HEBR - 102, ITAL - 201, JAPN - 201,LATN - 102, CHIN - 201, RUSS - 201 or SPAN - 201
Science majors must complete the requirement by satisfactorily completing one of the following courses:FREN - 102, GERM - 102,GREK - 102, HEBR - 102, ITAL - 102, JAPN - 102, LATN - 102,CHIN - 102, RUSS - 102, SPAN 102
Exemption from this requirement may be obtained through establishment of equivalent proficiency as determined by results of the Foreign Language Placement Test, transfer of equivalent college-level course credit, or achievement of a minimum score of 4 on any foreign language CEEB Advanced Placement Examination.
