Hofstra College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is dedicated to the genesis of knowledge and creative works in the Humanities, Natural Sciences, and Social Sciences, and to the transmission, preservation, analysis, and evaluation of knowledge and creative works within the Hofstra University academic community and across larger regional and global communities. The following principles guide the mission of HCLAS:
- The liberal arts are the foundation for all higher education. The main objective of a liberal arts education is to enable students, working with faculty and with one another in an atmosphere of freedom and tolerance, to gain an understanding of how people have attempted throughout history to render the breadth of human experience intelligible. To that end, students explore the various ways in which the human mind has engaged, and continues to engage, its physical and social environment through art, literature, philosophical and historical inquiry, scientific and mathematical reasoning, and social scientific analysis. A liberal arts education develops critical thinking skills and the ability to access and analyze information and ideas in a technologically sophisticated world. Students also master the oral and written communication skills required for active ethical participation in a society characterized by increasing interdependence and diversity. Thus, HCLAS graduates emerge as lifelong learners who are intellectually ambitious and adaptable to change. HCLAS is further committed to broadly cultivating the moral judgment, aesthetic sensibilities, and emotional maturity of students to prepare them for lives of social responsibility as members of their local, national, and global communities.
- HCLAS faculty are members of two academic communities, one internal to Hofstra University, the other composed of the web of scholars and professionals external to Hofstra University. As members of the former, HCLAS faculty are committed to contributing to the academic environment of Hofstra University through excellence in teaching, mentoring, and interdisciplinary engagement. As members of the latter, HCLAS faculty are committed to the production and dissemination of knowledge and creative works beyond the Hofstra campus.
- Within the context of its liberal arts mission, HCLAS is committed to the development and support of selected pre-professional programs, both graduate and undergraduate, that further the career aspirations of students and that meet the needs of society. The purpose of anchoring pre-professional programs to the liberal arts is to awaken and develop the students' intellectual powers before they enter upon their chosen careers, ensuring that each student brings to their profession the greatest possible assets of intelligence, resourcefulness, judgment, and character.
- HCLAS recognizes that academic excellence is nurtured in a community of scholars united in the common goal of mutual enlightenment. To that end, HCLAS is committed to attracting, supporting, and retaining a diverse community of talented students and distinguished faculty.