College of Humanities

Welcome to Humanities

As education becomes ever more focused on professional degrees and vocational training, employers increasingly report that what they seek is not necessarily more specialized degrees but rather people who can think, who can synthesize, who can analyze, and who can apply a broad base of thought to a wide variety of areas.

The College of Humanities teaches students to read, write and think. Our graduates are prepared for a 21st-century workforce that advances those who have the power not just to achieve and innovate but to communicate their ideas to an audience beyond their applied field.

This Is Irrefutable Evidence of the Value of a Humanities Education

January 30, 2014

College graduate seen from behind facing an open door.

The Huffington Post | By Carolyn Gregoir “You shouldn’t enter college worried about what you will do when you exit,” David Rubenstein, co-founder of the Carlyle Group, said at a World Economic Forum panel discussion last week on the state of the humanities. Read more

Setting the Record Straight on Liberal Arts Grads' Employability

January 22, 2014

Liberal Arts Graduates and Employment cover

A report released this week by the Association of American Colleges and Universities dispels the popular notion that liberal arts graduates are subject to lower earnings and higher rates of unemployment than those with "practical" degrees. Liberal Arts Graduates and Employment: Setting the Record Straight cites U.S. Census data from 2010-11 to show Read more

English Professor Martin Pousson Awarded NEA Fellowship

December 16, 2013

The National Endowment for the Arts has awarded English professor Martin Pousson a 2014 Creative Writing Fellowship in Prose. The accompanying $25,000 grant and a planned fall 2014 sabbatical will allow Pousson, who teaches in the creative writing and queer studies programs, to complete work on his new novel, Black Sheep Boy. But Pousson says the recognition means more to him than any amount of grant funding ever could. Read more

Professor Denise Sandoval's Community Arts Book Receives PEN Award

December 6, 2013

Chicana/o Studies professor Denise M. Sandoval has received a 2013 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Literary Award along with coeditor Luis J. Rodriguez for their book Rushing Waters, Rising Dreams: How the Arts Are Transforming a Community. The book documents 20 years of arts activism in the northeast San Fernando Valley, compiling essays, poetry, interviews, photography, and color art reproductions chronicling the impact of communal cultural spaces on neighborhoods and families. Read more

California State University, Northridge