The academic departments, called disciplines, are grouped together in collegia, based upon the method of inquiry and intellectual discipline necessary to master the material. All first-year students are part of the Foundations Collegium. Through the Foundations Collegium, students participate in Autumn Term (AT) and take the first-year course sequence, Human Experience (HE) and the First-Year Experience Seminar (FYE). Once students declare a major, they join the collegium of their major.

Members of the Behavioral Sciences Collegium believe that the urgent problems of today—racism, gender discrimination, climate change, population pressures, animal welfare, hunger, poverty, and inequality—are problems of human behavior and social institutions. Developing methodological and conceptual tools to understand both individual and collective behaviors can help us find solutions to such problems. All students will encounter quantitative techniques for analyzing data in a statistical methods course, while some may also encounter qualitative methods. Majors are avail- able in animal studies, business administration, economics, environmental studies, international relations and global affairs, management, political science, psychology, and sociology.

The Comparative Cultures Collegium seeks to promote an understanding of the breadth of human cultures worldwide through the study of world languages, area studies, and related disciplines. Language study in Arabic, Chinese, French, Italian, Japanese, or Spanish can be integrated into a major program or an interdisciplinary concentration with another discipline or it may serve to round out a student’s liberal arts program. Other majors in the Comparative Cultures Collegium include anthropology, international studies, and international business.

The Creative Arts Collegium is dedicated to promoting the development of creativity in each person and the integration of the intellectual, physical, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of the self. Sharing a belief in the value of experiential learning, members of the Collegium recognize that students learn as much through experiencing the creative process as in the completion of a product. The majors in the Creative Arts Collegium include art, music, theatre, creative writing, interdisciplinary arts, communication, and human development.

The Letters Collegium is dedicated to under- standing more fully what it means to be human and to critiquing ourselves, our institutions, and our world based on the investigation of events, artifacts, texts, and works of art. A shared focus is the development of skills in close reading, analysis, critical thinking, interpretation, and written and oral expression. Majors in the Letters Collegium include American studies, humanities, philosophy, religious studies, classics and ancient studies, literature, comparative literature, history, East Asian studies, women’s and gender studies, and film studies.

The Natural Sciences Collegium strives to educate students in the scientific method and the important ideas of contemporary science, and to impart an understanding of the social, economic, and ethical implications of scientific discoveries. The Collegium emphasizes the development of the skills of observation, measurement, experimental design, problem-solving, research, and the study of the principles and concepts that are necessary for successful scientific investigation. Majors in the Natural Sciences Collegium include biology, chemistry, biochemistry, computer science, physics, math, geosciences, and marine science.