Southwestern University
2002-2003 Catalog

Academic Calendar

Southwestern University: A Statement
The Academic Program
Degree Requirements
Academic Regulations

Course Descriptions

Brown College of Arts & Sciences
 Biology
 Chemistry
 Classics
 Communication
 Economics & Business
 Education
 English
 History
 Kinesiology
 Math & Computer Science
 Modern Languages & Literatures
 Physics
 Political Science
 Psychology
 Religion & Philosophy
 Sociology & Anthropology

Sarofim School of Fine Arts
 Art
 Music
 Theatre

Interdisciplinary Programs
Special Academic Programs

Admission & Financial Aid
Student Life
Cultural Activities
History & Governance
Endowments & Scholarships

University Directory
Board & Officers
Faculty
Administration
 

SOUTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY:
A STATEMENT OF WHO WE ARE

Southwestern possesses a historic and continuing mission that has guided our development from frontier origins in the Republic of Texas to the complex international society we confront today. A defining heritage has emerged from our response to these challenges.
Southwestern originated in pioneering Texas and finds its identity in entering unfamiliar environments with confidence and vigor. We were not founded to defend an established order, but to generate creative responses to altered opportunities and resources. We have surmounted severe hardship, as in the adversities that led to our arrival in Georgetown, and subsequently in the Great Depression. Southwestern has also known times of abundance, and at the beginning of the 20th century it possessed financial strength and academic distinction. In the 21st century, we face an unprecedented opportunity, that of attaining national leadership as a liberal arts and sciences college.
Southwestern stands in a United Methodist tradition of higher education. Non-sectarian and diverse in its collective life, Southwestern’s character is shaped by John Wesley’s famous appeal: “Let learning and vital piety be joined.” Dogmatic rigidity is alien to our institutional spirit; we hold that ethical commitments and spiritual identities must welcome and support the swift advance of knowledge. Believing that none has a permanent monopoly on truth, Southwestern is fundamentally committed to academic freedom, to the informed debate in which new knowledge, new ethical insights, and richer spiritualities are grounded. Southwestern also shares the traditional Methodist concern for social justice: we seek to promote a sense of social responsibility, and are committed to offering the benefits of higher education to those who confront adverse financial and social circumstances.
Southwestern is a human-scale community, at whose center are meaningful human relationships rather than bureaucratic routines. Students and faculty, administration and staff, as well as the board of trustees—all are answerable to face-to-face relationships that impose a level of responsibility unknown in very large institutions. Our small size and private character do not mean seclusion from the broader world of social and political conflict, but afford a distinctive and humane way of engaging that world.
Participants in this community are citizens; each has a stake in the destiny of the whole, and all play parts in the decisions that shape the common life. An emphasis on the fine arts, and the liberal arts and sciences has taken precedence at Southwestern during the last two decades, and the quest for national standing has moved toward a successful completion. Southwestern’s tradition of communal responsibility has provided mutual support and encouragement amid the rigorous individual and collective striving to excel. The tradition of mutual cooperation and nurture sustains the environment of teaching and learning, supporting the ethical development and personal wholeness of students as their intellectual capacities are challenged.
Southwestern occupies a culturally diverse and vital setting. In coming to Williamson County, Southwestern entered a community of farmers and ranchers with distinct economies that faced each other across the Balcones Fault; here Tejanos, Swedes, Czechs, Germans, Anglos and African Americans retained their cultural identities. The cultural, intellectual and social life of Austin—the state capital—enriches this diversity, and multiplies the resources for personal and collective development available to members of the Southwestern community.
Sunbelt prosperity has brought economic vitality and cultural leadership, placing Central Texas on a national stage. Austin has become an international center for the emerging information society, and is a focal point for developing relations between the United States and Latin America. Southwestern is now responding to the challenges of a global community, in the effort to move from national standing to national leadership as a liberal arts and sciences college.

AIMS, CORE PURPOSE, AND CORE VALUES OF THE UNIVERSITY

Officially adopted by the faculty and Board of Trustees in 1972 and amended in 2001:

Southwestern University, under the auspices of the United Methodist Church, is committed to undergraduate liberal education involving both the study of and participation in significant aspects of our cultural heritage, expressed primarily through the arts, the sciences, the institutions, and the professions of society. As defined by the members of the Southwestern University community, including faculty, staff, students, alumni, and trustees, the core purpose of Southwestern University is that of fostering a liberal arts community whose values and actions encourage contributions toward the well-being of humanity. To this end, the Southwestern University community has agreed upon a set of core values, that serve as the guiding principles for the institution:

Promoting lifelong learning and a passion for intellectual and personal growth.

Fostering diverse perspectives.

Being true to one’s self and others.

Respecting the worth and dignity of persons.

Encouraging activism in the pursuit of justice and the common good.
As a teaching-learning community, Southwestern encourages rigorous inquiry and scholarship, creative teaching, and the expression of free human life. The University seeks to involve the student in finding a personal and social direction for life, developing more sensitive methods of communication, cultivating those qualities and skills which make for personal and professional effectiveness, and learning to think clearly and make relevant judgments and discriminations.

THE EDUCATIONAL VISION

A university is more than a collection of courses or programs. At its best a university provides a coherent and interrelated vision of learning. At Southwestern, we believe that individual programs should be seen against the background of this fundamental concept of a university. In a liberal arts university, the major is accomplished within the context of a student becoming a broadly educated person. In other words, at Southwestern University, there is one overarching educational goal that all students pursue: the goal of a liberal education.
A liberal arts education ranges across many disciplines. It exposes the student poet to physics and technology and the young accountant to the history of art. It takes advantage of each subject’s potential for posing value questions and for displaying problems, facts, ideas, events, and situations in their full contexts—cultural, scientific, aesthetic, political, historical, and technological. At its best, it produces generalists who can think critically and creatively, exercise judgment, sort through complexities, tolerate ambiguity, communicate effectively, and adapt to change.
At Southwestern, we believe a liberal education is the most important educational goal because it offers personal enrichment, broadening one’s comprehension and deepening one’s capacities for a fuller, more rewarding life. Concurrently, a liberal education is an excellent foundation for most careers. A liberal education teaches communication skills, sharpens decision-making capacities, and develops analytical abilities. Most importantly, a liberal education is based on a course of study that conveys the skills and habits for continued learning. It provides an understanding of global events and the context from which to speculate about tomorrow.
In addition to exploring new areas of inquiry through elective options, every student’s academic program at Southwestern has two distinct elements—the General Education program and the major or area of concentration.
Southwestern’s General Education Requirements offer students a common experience by bringing them face-to-face with the principles and methods of the chief branches of human thought and creativity. At Southwestern, all entering first-year students begin the General Education program with Foundation courses. These courses satisfy English composition and mathematics proficiency requirements, as well as provide a common intellectual experience for first-year students through the First-year Seminar.
These Foundation courses require students to develop competence in writing, critical analysis, and problem solving at the very beginning of their college career. In addition, all students must take courses to satisfy a requirement of computer literacy. Students must be able to demonstrate knowledge of the operation of computers and understand how they can be used in problem solving, particularly in relation to their chosen major field. Building upon these communication and quantitative skills, all students continue the General Education Requirements by choosing representative Perspectives on Knowledge courses from the humanities, social sciences, fine arts, and natural sciences. The Perspectives on Knowledge courses are so-named because through those requirements, students acquire a broad perspective, enabling them to graduate with considered values, perceptive awareness, and purpose, knowing and understanding more about the complexity and richness of the world around them.
The General Education program and the major or area of concentration program are complementary, with the General Education program serving as a foundation upon which students can build a successful academic program in a field of specialization. Southwestern undergraduates can choose from approximately 35 majors, many of which offer a choice of several emphases or concentrations and include a variety of special, double, and interdisciplinary majors. Maintaining the balance between required general learning and the major is one of the hallmarks of the quality education available at Southwestern.
While the Perspectives on Knowledge requirements ensure a breadth of exposure to the liberal arts, the major allows for the deeper exploration of a specific discipline. As a part of the major, students are required to complete an integrative or “capstone” experience. The precise nature of this obligation depends on each student’s major as well as particular interests. Most fulfill the requirement with an extended research paper, a final project, or a special senior seminar. The purpose of this requirement is to allow students to demonstrate their overall grasp of their chosen major and show their ability to interrelate that knowledge.
This combination—general requirements and a major—taken within a personalized setting where close association with the faculty is the norm, is designed to develop basic intellectual skills of analysis and communication, to examine the moral and aesthetic dimensions of human culture, and to foster breadth and depth in theoretical knowledge. It is our belief that all of these build a foundation for success and fulfillment in personal, professional, and civic life after graduation.

POLICY STATEMENTS

Southwestern University is committed to the principle of equal opportunity for all persons without regard to sex, race, color, religion, age, disability, national or ethnic origin, or any other impermissible factor. Southwestern University’s commitment to equal opportunity includes nondiscrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. It is also committed to taking affirmative steps to see that such opportunities are made available for personnel in employment, promotion, transfer, recruitment, rates of pay and other forms of compensation, and selection for training.
Southwestern University is also committed to equal opportunity for all persons to complete a Southwestern degree program. Therefore, no academically qualified applicant will be refused admission on the basis of factors listed above. Recruitment and the administration of student financial aid will be conducted on the same non-discriminatory basis.
Southwestern University, in compliance with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1992, recognizes that qualified students who have made Southwestern University aware of diagnosed disabilities, including specific learning disabilities, are entitled to an equal opportunity to benefit from the educational program of the University and that reasonable academic accommodations may be necessary to provide that opportunity to students with disabilities.