CAS gets a new name and becomes a school

Soon you may have to retire your old, gray CAS T-shirt, because the College of Arts and… Soon you may have to retire your old, gray CAS T-shirt, because the College of Arts and Sciences is getting a new name.

Over the course of the next year, the College of Arts and Sciences and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences will be renamed the School of Arts and Sciences. John Cooper, dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, said that, while this new name is effective immediately, it will be implemented gradually over the next two years.

“This brings our nomenclature into line with the other Pitt schools,” Cooper said. He explained that, according to conventions in American Academia, the term “school” encompasses both graduate and undergraduate students. The word “college,” on the other hand, generally applies to undergraduate students.

For example, Pitt’s College of General Studies offers undergraduate programs only.

Cooper added that, while all the functions of FAS and CAS will remain the same, this new title will be simpler and represent their shared conviction to support the humanities.

“I think it expresses the interconnection and unity between our different missions,” Cooper said. He said that the professors in the School of Arts and Sciences are responsible, not only for writing scholarly articles and for doing research, but for teaching undergraduate students, as well as graduates.

“All of these activities flow from the scholarly expertise of the faculty,” he said. “This name is symbolic of that.”

Cooper mentioned that the confusing division between the FAS and the CAS was the result of a complicated history of names. According to the Arts and Sciences Gazette, Pitt’s first liberal arts programs were established through the College of Liberal Arts in 1845. By the 1960s, Pitt’s “academic disciplines” had been separated into the School of Liberal Arts, the School of General Studies, and the divisions of the Social Sciences, Natural Sciences, and Humanities.

In 1967, Pitt’s faculty and graduate programs were placed under the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, while the College of Arts and Sciences oversaw the University’s undergraduate programs.

In order to simplify and modernize the organization of the Arts and Sciences, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Council proposed bringing the two schools under one name. The faculty voted on changing the name at a faculty meeting in April, and the provost approved their recommendation to redesginate the FAS and the CAS as the School of Arts and Sciences in August.

Cooper explained that there have not been any large announcements about the new name because the administration will need to work with the provost, the Registrar’s Office and the Office of Admissions and Financial Aid on changes in records, printed material and Web sites.