Academic Programs: Statements of Mission and Goals

Last Updated: February 2007

Marietta College is committed to offering programs of in-depth study that prepare students for both challenging careers and admission to well-respected graduate and professional schools. Marietta College offers majors, minors and other academic programs in those select areas that are consistent with the mission of the College and where it has the expertise and resources to meet or exceed baselines of excellence.

Undergraduate Programs

English

Mission

To attract majors and minors who are committed to a liberal arts education and who value the understanding that can come from careful analysis of literary texts.
To graduate majors whose ability to articulate, organize, and analyze ideas in the English language qualifies them to succeed in graduate school and a variety of careers.
To teach students an appreciation of literature that will allow them to make meaningful use of their leisure time.
To provide students an opportunity to develop individual voices and exercise creativity in writing.
To provide all Marietta College students with the foundations of compositional skills that will help them to do the analytical work required in their majors.

Goals

To inform majors, minors, and other interested students about the historical development of the literary traditions of emerging nations.
To introduce the literary traditions of emerging nations.
To develop an appreciation, among students in upper-division classes, of the texts that represent literary eras and significant authors.
To cultivate in students the habit of close reading of texts so that they read with accuracy, sensitivity to nuances of meaning, and awareness of writing strategies.
To awaken in students an interest in history and current events in order to make them informed readers who understand patterns of historical development.
To encourage students to recognize in literature a record of diverse cultures, races, and ideologies and to help them to appreciate these diversities.
To challenge students to understand and practice various creative writing genres and techniques, develop their own voices as writers, and critique the writing of others.
To enforce high standards of composition in order to prepare students for the analyzing, articulating, and self-editing that they must do as professionals.
To enable students to use both traditional and electronic methods of research and to synthesize a variety of sources into a coherent composition.
To provide for majors and minors opportunities such as internships and guided mentoring that will allow them to put their skills to practical use.

(Return to top)

Environmental Science

Mission

To graduate professionals able to successfully enter: graduate programs in Environmental Science, related programs in the Natural and Social Sciences including but not limited to public policy and administration; environmental management; law school and other fields. The program intends to also prepare students for employment in public, private and third sector employment in the environmental field.

Goals

To ultimately recruit and graduate approximately twenty quality liberal arts students per year, placing these graduates in graduate and law schools; public, private and third sector environmental organizations.
To contribute, as well, to the broader capabilities of all Marietta students in the areas of environmental science and studies.

(Return to top)

Gender Studies

Mission

To investigate and analyze the ways gender and biological sex have influenced individuals, societies, cultures, and human thought in the past and to seek to understand these same dimensions in the present.

Goals

Learn how concepts of gender influence social and interpersonal behavior
Recognize how sexuality can influence social and personal decisions.
Grasp how social constructs (legal, political, religious systems) attempt to regulate human sexuality and gender identity,
Become familiar with various men's and women's groups and gain an understanding of what men and women seek from membership in these groups,
Gain an understanding of how and why tensions arise between these groups,
Explore their own gender role and identity,
Acquire empathy toward the various and often differing individual definitions of 'womanhood' and 'manhood'.
Examine the impact of gender identity on human relations historically and/or cross culturally.