A Letter from the Chair

Welcome to the Department of Humanities, History, and Social Sciences (HHSS), a community where the faculty and staff encourage students to become active participants in their learning. By placing students at the center of their learning, we encourage them to view themselves and the courses offered in the department as integral to the lifelong experience of learning.

The Department of HHSS offers courses in more than sixteen academic disciplines spread over 300 classes every semester. With an average of six thousand students taking classes in the department each semester, the vibrant and challenging curriculum provided by HHSS cultivates intellectual curiosity and encourages students to develop and refine transferable skills. Every student pursuing a degree at Columbia College Chicago must meet the requirements of the Liberal Arts and Sciences Core Curriculum that provides an integrated liberal education, and complete a minimum of two courses in the Humanities, History, and Social Sciences, respectively. Classes are available in eight foreign languages and cultures, including world and European languages, and offer a range of introductory to advanced levels of study.

Interactive classroom experiences that incorporate new learning technologies play an increasingly important role in HHSS courses. At the same time, students are able to hone communication and critical thinking skills, stimulate their analytical skills, and develop a framework that will help them to interrogate the world in which they live. Enriched by HHSS courses, students are prepared to make connections that enable them to demand more of themselves and others in a quickly changing world.

The Department of HHSS is home to Cultural Studies, a popular undergraduate degree program that utilizes an interdisciplinary approach to provide an analytical framework to enable students to interrogate the complexity of culture and cultural production. A core curriculum is supported with electives selected from the HHSS curriculum that range from the more traditional to the visionary, as well as electives in the Department of English and across the college. The Department of HHSS offers four minors in Black World Studies, Cultural Studies, Latino and Latin American Studies, and Women’s and Gender Studies, all programs of study that positively impact the education of Columbia College students who are able to pursue one of the minors alongside their major program of study.

The faculty and staff in the Department of HHSS are among the leading scholars in their respective fields. They come from diverse cultures and backgrounds and in turn attract a diverse student body.

Thank you for visiting the website of the Department of HHSS. We hope that what you read here will peak your interest and inspire you to explore and sample some of the many classes and programs available in the department.

Cadence Wynter, PhD
Interim Chair – Department of Humanities, History, and Social Sciences