The University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS) is the largest of the eleven colleges at The University of Iowa, founded in 1900. In 2007-2008, there was a total of 16,417 undergraduates enrolled in CLAS, 81% of all undergraduates at the university, and about 2,400 graduate students. The largest undergraduate majors are: Psychology

Psychology

Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

, English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

, Biology

Biology

Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...

, Communication Studies

Communication studies

Communication Studies is an academic field that deals with processes of communication, commonly defined as the sharing of symbols over distances in space and time. Hence, communication studies encompasses a wide range of topics and contexts ranging from face-to-face conversation to speeches to mass...

, Interdepartmental Studies, Political Science

Political science

Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...

, School of Art and Art History

University of Iowa School of Art and Art History

The University of Iowa School of Art and Art History is a school of the University of Iowa located in Iowa City, IA which awards undergraduate and graduate degrees in Art and Art history...

, History

History

History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...

, International Studies

International relations

International relations is the study of relationships between countries, including the roles of states, inter-governmental organizations , international nongovernmental organizations , non-governmental organizations and multinational corporations...

, and Journalism

Journalism

Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...

. The College is housed in Schaeffer Hall part of the historic Pentacrest

Pentacrest

The Pentacrest is a collection of five buildings on the campus of the University of Iowa — the Old Capitol, Jessup Hall, Macbride Hall, MacLean Hall, and Schaeffer Hall — on a four-block-sized parcel of land in Iowa City, Iowa.-Description:...

 on the university's Iowa City campus.

History

The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences was founded in 1900 when the University reorganized itself through the establishment of colleges to nurture disciplinary areas. Though The University of Iowa has offered liberal arts education since its founding in 1847, The College of Liberal Arts came into existence only at the dawn of the new century.
George MacLean, president of the University of Iowa

University of Iowa

The University of Iowa is a public state-supported research university located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the oldest public university in the state. The university is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees...

 from 1899–1911 and whom a building on the Pentacrest

Pentacrest

The Pentacrest is a collection of five buildings on the campus of the University of Iowa — the Old Capitol, Jessup Hall, Macbride Hall, MacLean Hall, and Schaeffer Hall — on a four-block-sized parcel of land in Iowa City, Iowa.-Description:...

 is named for, reorganized the academic structure of the University, transforming the Collegiate Department into the College of Liberal Arts, one of the seven colleges established in 1900-01, along with the Graduate College and five professional colleges. Eventually, other colleges evolved from Liberal Arts: Engineering in 1905, Education in 1913, and Commerce

Commerce

While business refers to the value-creating activities of an organization for profit, commerce means the whole system of an economy that constitutes an environment for business. The system includes legal, economic, political, social, cultural, and technological systems that are in operation in any...

, now Business

Tippie College of Business

The Tippie College of Business at The University of Iowa, established as the College of Commerce in 1921, is one of the oldest and top ranked business schools in the United States. The College was the first academic division at the University of Iowa to be named for an alumnus, Henry B. Tippie, a...

 in 1921.

The College of Liberal Arts was renamed The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences in 2001. There are currently 140,000 living alumni of the College.

Departments and Academic Programs

CLAS is made up of roughly 40 academic departments, ranging from the fine and performing arts

Performing arts

The performing arts are those forms art which differ from the plastic arts insofar as the former uses the artist's own body, face, and presence as a medium, and the latter uses materials such as clay, metal or paint which can be molded or transformed to create some physical art object...

, humanities

Humanities

The humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences....

 and letters

Literature

Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...

, social sciences

Social sciences

Social science is the field of study concerned with society. "Social science" is commonly used as an umbrella term to refer to a plurality of fields outside of the natural sciences usually exclusive of the administrative or managerial sciences...

, and natural science

Natural science

The natural sciences are branches of science that seek to elucidate the rules that govern the natural world by using empirical and scientific methods...

s and mathematical sciences. These units offer nearly 70 undergraduate majors and certificates, as well as more than 50 graduate programs, for which the degrees are awarded by the Graduate College.

Ethnicity

• 3.8% Asian or Pacific Islander
• 3.8% International
• 3.5% Latino(a)
• 2.8% African-American
• 0.5% American Indian or Native Alaskan

Country of Origin for International Students

Students from over 47 countries are enrolled, with the greatest numbers coming from:

• People's Republic of China
  People's Republic of China
  China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
  
   336 students
• Republic of Korea 107 students
• Malaysia 35 students
• Canada
  Canada
  Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
  
   15 students
• Japan
  Japan
  Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
  
   15 students
• Taiwan
  Taiwan
  Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
  
   15 students

Rankings

The University of Iowa's College of Liberal Arts and Science offers some of the highest-ranked graduate programs in the country among public universities:

• Writers' Workshop
  Iowa Writers' Workshop
  The Program in Creative Writing, more commonly known as the Iowa Writers' Workshop, at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa, is a highly regarded graduate-level creative writing program in the United States...
  
  (Creative Writing): #1
• Speech-Language Pathology: #1
• Audiology: #1
• Social Psychology: #2
• Fine Arts (overall): #4
• Paleontology: #5
• Plasma Physics: #7
• Clinical Psychology: #8
• Political Science: #12
• English: #15
• History: #17
• Sociology: #20
• Biology: #23
• Psychology: #25

External links

• http://www.clas.uiowa.edu/
• List of CLAS Majors http://www.clas.uiowa.edu/departments/majors/
• List of CLAS Departments http://www.clas.uiowa.edu/departments/