The College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences is a fairly new college in its current state, but it has a long tradition at the university. In the early days of the university, the components of CLASS were part of the College of Arts and Sciences. In the early 1970s, this college was divided into the College of Humanities, Fine Arts, and Communication (HFAC), the College of Social Sciences (SOS), and the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics (NSM). In 2000, SOS and HFAC were brought together to form CLASS. Its departments and schools occupy buildings ranging from the oldest building on campus, Roy G. Cullen Hall, to among the newest, like the Moores School of Music building. CLASS faculty teach nearly 10,000 students every semester, at both undergraduate and graduate levels. Some current CLASS departments have been offering baccalaureate degrees since UH became a four-year institution in the 1930s. The first doctoral degrees were conferred in departments like History and Political Science in the mid 1970s. The Sarah Campbell Blaffer Gallery, the university’s art museum that is housed in CLASS, was dedicated in 1973 and the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts, was completed in late 2005.

CLASS’s 15 departments and schools all offer undergraduate and master’s degrees, and seven offer doctoral degrees. The College also has seven programs offering undergraduate minors. Cultural centers, like the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Gallery and the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts also make their home in CLASS.

With disciplines ranging from Art to Theatre, Anthropology to Sociology, and African American Studies to Women’s Studies, the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences is the largest and most diverse of the twelve colleges at the University of Houston.

Source:

About the college; A Brief History of CLASS, available from www.class.uh.edu. 12 August 2009