Dear arts and sciences community,
Welcome to 2023! I sincerely hope that you had a restful and enjoyable winter break and that you are excited to be back on campus! I am enthusiastic about the future of the College of Arts and Science, as we look to define the principals of our college.
The premise of arts and sciences is based on a very simple idea: the most difficult, complicated and consequential problems we face in society—e.g., climate change, political polarization and violent crime—involve both the natural world and the humans that live within it. To solve those problems, we need expertise from many areas. The wide array of disciplines found in CoAS—from politics to physics, English and philosophy to biology—is the manifestation of that important idea.
CoAS faculty and staff are poised to equip students with concrete skills to enrich both their lives and the lives of those around them. The use of these skills must be guided by wisdom, empathy and compassion. These skills and motivations for how to use them are best learned by being immersed in a variety of fields—just the interdisciplinary experience that CoAS provides. The definition of technological progress often depends on whether it advances the human condition, and improving the human condition frequently relies on technological breakthroughs. Drexel can be the university that makes the two inseparable.
Higher education is critically in need of a new interpretation of what it means to obtain a liberal arts education, and our college can be a leader in this change. By defining how varied approaches to solving problems can be taught to our students in a way that bolsters their careers and impacts society at large, CoAS will not only benefit the next generation of Dragons, but also serve as a partner to the Philadelphia community and beyond.
