I am pleased to introduce the college's new web site. In this page and subsequent pages, you will read of the remarkable accomplishments in research, teaching, professional, and public service of the faculty in the college's 17 departments, two divisions, and six research centers across the humanities, social sciences, and mathematical and natural sciences. You will learn of innovative programmatic and curricular developments that are expanding the educational experiences and opportunities of our students. You will meet some faculty, staff, and students who are among the many names and faces of the college and who continue to enhance its reputation. And you will see why I believe NIU's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is the heart of the state's premier comprehensive university.
I am convinced now more than ever that the complex nature of the college's mission demands that we continue to strike an appropriate balance between scholarship and teaching, between graduate and undergraduate education, and between the varied demands of specific majors and a broad and meaningful general education curriculum. In this college, professional scholarship, graduate programs, undergraduate programs, and general education are not dealt with in broad and exclusive categories of greater or lesser priority but are interwoven. The catalytic effect that comes from linking cutting edge research and excellent teaching has always been our greatest strength and will continue to be our priority.Certainly there are renowned and productive scientists and humanists at every large research university in the country. The difference here at NIU in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is that even our most outstanding scholars-those I've mentioned, as well as other award-winning faculty you'll read about in these pages-are actively involved in teaching and regularly teach undergraduate as well as graduate courses. Indeed, most undergraduate and general education courses in the college are taught by members of the professorial rank and many of our introductory freshman and sophomore courses are taught by some of the most senior and accomplished faculty in departments across the college. As you will see, the college's most esteemed teachers are in many cases its outstanding researchers-and vice-versa. It is the very faculty attracted to the research environment at NIU whose presence in the classroom contributes to the quality of the undergraduate experience for students.
Elsewhere on our homepage, you'll also meet members of the college's professional advising staff. You will learn of the quantity and quality of the academic advising services they provide our undergraduates-from orientation to graduation-and you will see why they are so important to the success of our students. You will also learn of the college's commitment to diversity and how through our women's studies curriculum we are working to develop that appreciation even further. In addition, you'll read about other curricular innovations and commitments. We are particularly proud of two recent initiatives: Freshman or Focused Interest Groups (known as FIGs), which link general education and other undergraduate courses around common themes and areas of interest, and a new Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship program (URAP), in which upper level undergraduates work as partners with senior faculty in significant research projects. Both of these new programs attest to the college's commitment to provide increased opportunities for students; and both will remain a priority for all of us in the college.In future home page updates, you will read about other college initiatives and meet other faculty, staff, and students, but in closing let me just say that when I entered the teaching profession I did so because I believed in the idea of a liberal arts education that originally inspired the founding of universities. Universities were to be the depositories of knowledge and the disseminators of knowledge, but, even more, hey were to be places where knowledge would be discovered and created. This idea of the university was a good one then, and it's a good one now. We here at NIU's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences are committed to this vision, and it's what gives the special kind of vitality to what we do and will continue to do.