Welcome to the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS)
With our mix of liberal arts and professional majors and a general education curriculum organized around 21st century learning competencies, CLAS offers a wealth of academic experiences that will inspire your curiosity, foster your intellectual development, and prepare you for an ever-changing world and job market. In a challenging and supportive environment, we encourage you to take risks, ask questions, seek resources, share your ideas, and explore different areas of study.
Founded in 1909 to educate teachers, we've long been known as a university leader for education. Today, undergraduate students continue to come to the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Lesley to earn degrees in education. But we also offer programs in over 30 other subject areas including Counseling and Psychology, Business Management, Social Work, Biology, and History. Some of our programs are quite distinctive, areas that are more typical at the graduate level. These include Holistic Psychology and Wellness, Art Therapy, and Creative Writing. Within CLAS, students can also obtain graduate degrees, saving time and money, through dual degree and accelerated programs in several areas.
Lesley University provides all undergraduate students with a strong foundation in the liberal arts, primarily through our new general education curriculum. This new curriculum is organized around learning outcomes aligned with courses from areas of inquiry such as, “Ethical Reasoning, Social Action, and Civic Engagement,” “Examining Power & Inequity,” “Local and Global Connections,” “Create, Perform, Design,” and “Human Relationships to the Natural and Physical World,” in addition to fundamental skills such as, “Analysis,” “Communication,” Collaboration,” and “Quantitative Reasoning.” The general education curriculum culminates with an interdisciplinary, project-based course on a critical issue to help students reflect on the general education outcomes and apply them to real-world problems. This unique curriculum supplements all of our undergraduate majors, preparing students to seek inventive answers to human problems and cultivate just, humane, and sustainable communities. We educate the people—the teachers, counselors, therapists, social workers, artists, scientists, policymakers, writers, and business leaders—who change lives and affect social change.
And, we’re lucky to call Cambridge, Massachusetts home. It’s one of the most dynamic environments for students in the nation. In between and all around us is the Cambridge and Boston area—a vibrant hub of internships, professional opportunity, service work, culture, and fun few other cities can match.