The University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Letters and Science is the largest college of the

University of Wisconsin–Madison The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved st ...

. It is located at

Madison, Wisconsin Madison is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. It is the List of municipalities in Wisconsin by population, second-most populous city in the state, with a population of 269,840 at the 2020 Uni ...

About the college

The College of Letters and Science enrolls more than half of all students of the university. It provides the foundation courses in science, math, languages, and literature for all undergraduate programs across campus. The college has more than 21,000 students and more than 3,000 faculty and staff. Letters & Science is the focal point of research in fields such as humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. The college ranks third among UW–Madison colleges for research grant awards and contributes a significant portion of the grants administered through the Graduate School of UW–Madison. It is also a

liberal arts college A liberal arts college or liberal arts institution of higher education is a college with an emphasis on Undergraduate education, undergraduate study in the Liberal arts education, liberal arts of humanities and science. Such colleges aim to impart ...

Departments and academic programs

The college is made up of 39 departments and five professional schools that instruct students and carry out research in a wide variety of fields, such as

biology Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, History of life, origin, evolution, and ...

chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...

economics Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...

history History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...

, journalism and mass communication,

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

, and

sociology Sociology is the scientific study of human society that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. The term sociol ...

. The five professional schools comprise: * Information School (iSchool) * School of Journalism & Mass Communications * La Follette School of Public Affairs * Mead Witter School of Music * Sandra Rosenbaum School of Social Work In addition, many centers, programs, and institutes offer courses for academic credit. Within the college, these units are organized under Humanities, Natural Sciences, and Social Sciences Divisions. Because most freshmen and sophomores take courses in the College of Letters and Science, it is the only college of the UW–Madison that touches every undergraduate student.

Letters & Science Honors Program

The Letters & Science Honors Program serves more than 1,700 students in the college with an enriched undergraduate curriculum. The program also offers professional advising services, grants, scholarships, and awards, and numerous academic, social, and service opportunities through the Honors Student Organization. The Honors Program also supports several student organizations, such as the University of Wisconsin–Madison Forensics Team. The Honors Program was begun in response to a petition by a group of students in 1958 seeking more challenging work for outstanding students.

Notable alumni and faculty

Many distinguished people have studied at the College of Letters and Science. Nobel prize-winning physicist

John Hasbrouck Van Vleck John Hasbrouck Van Vleck (; March 13, 1899 – October 27, 1980) was an American physicist and mathematician. He was co-awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1977, for his contributions to the understanding of the behavior of electronic magnetis ...

completed his A.B. from the college in 1920. Winners of the

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; ; ) are awards administered by the Nobel Foundation and granted in accordance with the principle of "for the greatest benefit to humankind". The prizes were first awarded in 1901, marking the fifth anniversary of Alfred N ...

, the

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...

, and fellows of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

have been associated with the college.

References

External links

College of Letters & Science
{{DEFAULTSORT:University Of Wisconsin-Madison College Of Letters And Science University of Wisconsin–Madison Liberal arts colleges at universities in the United States