University of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences

The College of Arts and Sciences is the liberal arts and sciences unit of the University of Kentucky, located in Lexington, Kentucky. It is primarily divided between the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities, and offers more than thirty degree options for both undergraduate and graduate students.The college is home to 5,200 undergraduate students, 960 graduate students, 50 postdoctoral students, and 350 faculty members. The College of Arts and Sciences is led by award-winning professors and researchers who have been recognized by such organizations as the Fulbright Scholar Program, National Science Foundation, and National Endowment for the Humanities. The College of Arts and Sciences features programs in Hispanic Studies, Human Geography, and Clinical Psychology each ranked in the top twenty among public institutions.The mission of the college is to facilitate the learning of a diverse student population through an educational curriculum emphasizing the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. The college is dedicated to the idea that its students should have the ability to engage with diverse fields of knowledge and to think critically about the human and natural worlds.History of the collegeThe College of Arts and Science was established April 14, 1908 by James K. Patterson, the first president of the University of Kentucky, as part of Patterson's initiative to create a college within the university that would provide solid educational training in the sciences, arts, and humanities.The Graduate School was formally established in 1912, and by 1919 UK was one of only 130 institutions in the United States whose graduate school had been accepted to the National Association of State Universities.In 1918, President Frank McVey expanded the college from 13 departments to 22 in and added the "s" to Sciences (thus making it the College of Arts and Sciences). McVey insisted on hiring faculty members with doctorates to make the university more competitive.