CLAS: UF College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Learning is the name of the game in the College of Arts and Sciences. Our goal is to provide a sound and solid intellectual experience for our students, under master teacher-scholars, in order to develop the rigor of the students' mental discipline, sharpen their analytical powers, stimulate their interest and imagination, broaden their aptness in transferring knowledge from field to field, heighten their creativity and fire their curiosity to the point where they will be equipped to unravel the enigmas upon whose solution the future of our race may well depend.

Knowledge, wisdom, skill, know-how, analytical thought, and creative thinking - these are the attributes of the educated person who will build the society of tomorrow which is the dream of today. Every major problem of society - environmental, educational, social, scientific economic, and political - will require our best, most highly developed capabilities for its solution. Tomorrow's society in not one whose problems will be solved by the sledgehammers and bulldozers of amateurs. The sensitivity, the new consciousness, the fresh outlook on the human condition that are the peculiar and priceless possessions of the youth of today can be instrumental in solving the crucial problems of tomorrow only as these ideals are coupled with the wisest possible use of the human intellect and the tools that intellect has created. In life, as well as in the classroom and the laboratory, basic, fundamental intellectual prowess is prerequisite to the solving of problems.

We in the College of Arts and Sciences will never rest until the youth of Florida will be able to obtain the finest, most distinctive, and most stimulating educational experiences available anywhere in the world without crossing the boundaries of the Sunshine State.

- C.A. VanderWerf, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, 1972-1978
Text from a brochure on the College

The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences constitutes the intellectual core of the university. Its principal mission is to lead the academic quest to understand our place in the universe, and to help shape our society and environment.