Admissions : Undergraduate Degree Programs

History

Courses in the department are designed to meet the needs of all students. In order to understand today’s issues and problems — in the West and throughout the world — it is important to have a firm grasp on the foundations of our global society, to know the history and culture of America, of Europe and of the world.

In keeping with the mission statement of Western Connecticut State University, the Department of History and Non-Western Cultures provides a comprehensive liberal arts education that prepares students for the job market and beyond. Our mission is to help students develop expertise in analyzing historical themes and to prepare them for employment in teaching or other specialized fields such as business, journalism, and law, or for graduate work in history.

Our goals are:

  • To provide an interdisciplinary forum in which students can deal with political, social, cultural, religious, economic, and geographic aspects of history.
  • To introduce students to non-Western cultures and help them understand global political and cultural relations.
  • To help students develop their abilities to think critically, discuss, and explain clearly historical issues and problems.
  • To cultivate writing, research, and analysis skills that will help students lead successful professional and personal lives.
  • To provide a history/education curriculum that imparts a broad base of knowledge about historical events, principles, and theories, so that students have the foundational knowledge they need to educate others.
  • To facilitate our students’ understanding of their national and community heritage.

At the completion of their degrees in History, students will be able to:

  1. Demonstrate critical and analytic skills appropriate for probing complex historical topics
  2. Successfully seek out diverse historical sources; mine them for information; and cite them in the appropriate format while completing research papers
  3. Present their verbal and written evaluations of the past in a nuanced and clear manner
  4. Collaborate effectively with others on historical analysis and in critiquing each other’s work.