The Stanford University School of Humanities and Sciences is the heart of the undergraduate program and grants the majority of

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is conside ...

's degrees. The School has 23 departments and 20 interdisciplinary degree-granting programs. The School was officially created in 1948, from the merger of the Schools of Biological Sciences, Humanities, Physical Sciences, and Social Sciences. Those schools date from the mid-1920s when the university first organized individual departments into schools.

Departments

The school is divided into three divisions: Humanities and Arts, Natural Sciences, and Social Sciences.

Humanities and Arts

* Art & Art History - One of the original University departments under the name Drawing (1891), Drawing and Painting (1892-1900), back to Drawing (1901–1907), Graphic Arts (1908–1910), Graphic Art (1911–1913, 1927–1947), then Art and Architecture (1948–1969), Art (1970-?) and finally its current name. * Classics - Stanford started with separate departments for Latin and Greek but these were merged in 1921 * Drama - Started as Public Speaking in 1927 became Speech and Drama in 1937 and Drama in 1971 * East Asian Languages and Cultures * English - one of the original departments but under the name English Language and Literature * History - one of the original departments * Linguistics - established in 1971 * Music - established in 1936 * Philosophy - established sometime in the 1890s * Religious Studies - started in 1941 as the department of Religion Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages * Comparative Literature * French and Italian - one of the original departments under the name Romance Languages which became Romanic Languages. Became French and Italian in 1963. * German Studies - one of the original departments under the name Germanic Languages * Iberian & Latin American Cultures * Slavic Languages and Literature - established in 1926

Natural Sciences

* Applied Physics - established in 1969 * Biology * Chemistry - one of the original departments * Mathematics - one of the original departments * Physics - one of the original departments * Statistics - established in 1936 The current Biology department was formed by merging Botany, Zoology, Entomology, and Physiology to form Biological Sciences. The name of this department was changed to Biology in 2009.

Social Sciences

* Anthropology * Communication - established in 1927 as Journalism * Economics - established in 1892 as Economics and Social Sciences * Political Science * Psychology - one of the original departments with

Frank Angell Frank Angell (July 8, 1857 – November 2, 1939) was an early American psychologist and the former athletic director at Stanford University. Biography Angell was born in 1857 in Scituate, Rhode Island. He graduated from the University of Verm ...

serving as its first chair. From 1922 to 1942, Lewis Terman served as its chair. In 2015, it was ranked as #1 in the country among all psychology graduate programs in the United States. * Sociology Stanford was set up with a Political Science department but that was almost immediately renamed Economics and Social Science. The forerunner of the current Political Science department was established in 1918. Sociology and Anthropology were originally one department established in 1948. They split in 1957. Anthropology itself was split into Anthropological Sciences and Cultural and Social Anthropology from 1999 to 2007 but merged again. Notable faculty in these departments other than those mentioned above include: * Albert Bandura (1925–2021), David Starr Jordan Professor Emeritus of Social Science *

Carol Dweck Carol Susan Dweck (born October 17, 1946) is an American psychologist. She is the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford University. Dweck is known for her work on motivation and mindset. She was on the faculty at Columbia Un ...

(born 1946), Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology (2004–) * Phillip Zimbardo (born 1933), professor of psychology (1968-200), known for the

Stanford Prison Experiment The Stanford prison experiment (SPE) was a psychological experiment conducted in the summer of 1971. It was a two-week simulation of a prison environment that examined the effects of situational variables on participants' reactions and beh ...

Joseph Greenberg Joseph Harold Greenberg (May 28, 1915 – May 7, 2001) was an American linguist, known mainly for his work concerning linguistic typology and the genetic classification of languages. Life Early life and education Joseph Greenberg was born on ...

(1915–2001), Ray Lyman Wilbur Professor of Social Science, known for his classification of the

Niger–Congo languages Niger–Congo is a hypothetical language family spoken over the majority of sub-Saharan Africa. It unites the Mande languages, the Atlantic-Congo languages (which share a characteristic noun class system), and possibly several smaller groups of ...

Core courses

At times Stanford has required undergraduate students to take core courses in various subjects in the humanities and sciences. Some of the core courses include * Western Culture (1980-1988) - freshmen took courses in both European and non-European cultures with “a substantial historical dimension” and include works by women and minorities. * Cultures, Ideas and Values (CIV) (1988-2000) * Introduction to the Humanities (IHUM) (2000-2012), a core freshman course sequence which consisted of one fall-quarter course followed by a 2-quarter pair of courses during the winter and spring quarters. Fall quarter courses were interdisciplinary while winter-spring focused on a specific disciplinary area. * Thinking Matters (2012–2016) * Ways of Thinking / Ways of Doing (2016–present)

List of deans

* Clarence H. Faust, English, 1948–1951 * Douglas Merritt Whitaker, Biology, 1951–1952 * Ray N. Faulkner, Art and Architecture, 1952–1956 * Philip H. Rhinelander, Philosophy, 1956–1961 * Robert Richardson Sears, Psychology, 1961–1970 * Albert H. Hastorf III, Psychology, 1970–1973 * Halsey L. Royden, Mathematics, 1973–1981 * Norman K. Wessells, Biology, 1981–1988 * Ewart A.C. Thomas, Psychology, 1988–1993 * John B. Shoven, Economics, 1993–1998 * Malcolm R. Beasley, Applied Physics, 1998–2001 *

Sharon R. Long Sharon Rugel Long (born March 2, 1951) is an American plant biologist. She is the Steere-Pfizer Professor of Biological Science in the Department of Biology at Stanford University, and the Principal Investigator of the Long Laboratory at Stanford. ...

, Biological Sciences, 2001–2007 * Richard Saller, Classics and History, 2007–2018 * Debra Satz, Philosophy, 2018–present

References

External links

Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences Homepage
{{Authority control Humanities and Sciences Humanities education Science education in the United States Science and technology in California University subdivisions in California Educational institutions established in 1948 1948 establishments in California