Our research activities and academic programs are remarkably broad, but they share one characteristic: all are curiosity-driven. Exploring the unknown is central to our mission to be the nexus of discovery and impact.
Nobel Laureate Jack Szostak, Ph.D. ’77, delivers the 2025 Ef Racker Lecture.
Ryan Young/Cornell University
Nobel Laureate Jack Szostak, Ph.D. ’77, delivers the 2025 Ef Racker Lecture.
Ryan Young/Cornell University
Courses offered in A&S of 4000 courses at Cornell.
Kate Blackwood/College of Arts and Sciences
Tanenhaus conversing with Dean Peter John Loewen during “The Man Who Built a Movement: How William F. Buckley Invented Modern Conservativism" on Oct. 9
Kate Blackwood/College of Arts and Sciences
Tanenhaus conversing with Dean Peter John Loewen during “The Man Who Built a Movement: How William F. Buckley Invented Modern Conservativism" on Oct. 9
Cornell University file photo
Zimbabwean writer NoViolet Bulawayo, M.F.A. ’10, speaks at Cornell in 2012.
Cornell University file photo
Zimbabwean writer NoViolet Bulawayo, M.F.A. ’10, speaks at Cornell in 2012.
This year, 27 new faculty have joined the College of Arts & Sciences, enriching 17 departments and programs with their excellence in an impressive range of topics, including moral psychology, gravitational waves, Black contemporary art and more.
The innovative undergraduate curriculum at A&S has distribution requirements that range from global citizenship to physical sciences to ethics and the mind. Classes build upon each other and cross the boundaries of traditional academic fields. Extensive work occurs outside of your major and minors, and there are no required core courses. Work closely with inspiring faculty to develop the hallmark skills of a liberal arts and sciences education – the ability to read critically, write persuasively and think broadly.
The Robert S. Harrison College Scholar Program represents the pinnacle of the liberal arts experience at Cornell. The program is focused on a small group of stellar students whose interests transcend disciplinary boundaries. These students have demonstrated exceptional promise and maturity to plan and carry out a well-designed individualized program of study and research. Students design their own interdisciplinary major, organized around a question or issue of interest, and pursue a course of study that cannot be found in an established major.
College Scholars explore subjects with a broader integration of related disciplines than most students would attempt. They pursue their subjects using advanced, often graduate-level, techniques. As a capstone to their studies, all Scholars undertake an independent senior project, usually culminating in an honors thesis. It is a unique opportunity within the College of Arts & Sciences for engagement and learning, in the classroom and beyond.
Through its core requirements, the Minor in Inequality Studies exposes students to the breadth of the social scientific literature on inequalities in many different social and economic goods (e.g., income, wealth, education, health, political power, social status, job security) and across many sources of difference (e.g., class, race and ethnicity, immigration status, gender, sexual orientation and identity, age, geographic location, or political and economic systems). Electives, which are offered across 30 departments in the social sciences, humanities, and natural sciences, allow students to tailor their studies to their particular interests. The Minor in Inequality Studies is open to any student in any major.
The Minor’s Health Equity Track allows interested students to focus their studies further on the social causes and consequences of inequalities in life expectancy, health outcomes, health-promoting behaviors, and access to health care. The Health Equity Track offers excellent preparation for students who are interested in careers in medicine, public health, social science research, or public policy.
The institutional home for the minor is the Center for the Study of Inequality.
Details
The undergraduate minor in migration studies is is a university-wide, interdisciplinary undergraduate minor that helps students understand how migration shapes our world on the move. Focused on the historical and contemporary contexts and factors that drive international migration and shape migrant experiences around the globe, the minor dovetails with Migrations: A Global Grand Challenge, part of Global Cornell.
With a minor in theatre, you can focus on areas that interest you within the theory and practice of live performance: acting and directing for stage production; theatre history, theory and criticism; and theatre design and technologies. Students with a primary interest in theatre can incorporate that into the PMA major.
As a Near Eastern studies major, you’ll have the opportunity to acquire language skills as well as familiarity with the history, cultures, literatures and religions of the Near East/Middle East from antiquity to the modern day. You’ll become acquainted broadly with the region – which extends from Turkey east through Iran and Afghanistan, south through the Arabian Pennisula to Yemen and across north Africa from Egypt to Morocco — and its cultures and be able to study a particular subfield in depth. Special focus is given to the ancient east Mediterranean and Mesopotamian regions and to the Levant and Egypt.
In the early Middle Ages, Norse peoples (popularly called Vikings) surged out of Scandinavia and established themselves as settlers and rulers across Europe. Beyond their political and territorial gains, they raided and traded even more widely. These major achievements were commemorated and celebrated in an extensive corpus of historical and fictional texts, many available in English translation. With a Viking Studies minor, you will explore this history and literature, languages and archaeology from an interdisciplinary perspective, and will gain an appreciation for the period and its long-term consequences. The minor encourages combining coursework abroad and locally, allowing students to take advantage of Cornell’s unique resources.
The study of public policy is a comprehensive exploration of the politics and mechanisms that shape policy formulation and execution, coupled with an assessment of their effects on society’s welfare and quality of life. Students who choose to major in public policy engage with a broad range of topics, including governmental policies impacting areas such as children and families, crime prevention, democratic processes, educational systems, environmental conservation, financial sectors, social inequality, public health initiatives, market regulations, and workplace dynamics, among others.
The major’s distinctive strength lies in its cultivation of robust theoretical frameworks, rigorous quantitative analysis skills, critical analytical thinking, strategic planning abilities, and the application of these skills to address real-world policy challenges. These competencies are highly sought after in both government and private sector settings, and our graduates are equipped to navigate complex policy landscapes and drive positive social change.
With a minor in minority, indigenous and third world studies, you’ll learn how the literatures of U.S. minority groups and third world (especially postcolonial) societies share and reflect similar histories of imperial conquest, slavery and colonial rule. You’ll think about literature and culture in a global context, analyzing imaginative responses to history, politics and ideology in a wide range of courses that explore African American, Asian American, American Indian, U.S. Latino/a, South Asian, Pacific, Caribbean and African literatures, as well as other sub-fields in colonial/postcolonial, diaspora and cultural studies.
As an astronomy major, you’ll gain in-depth knowledge about the nature of the universe, with thorough preparation in physics and mathematics. Like nearly all majors, there are opportunities to engage in research projects in your junior and senior years — faculty and students have played major roles in space exploration, including a heavy involvement in NASA missions such as the Mars Rovers.
With a minor in Crime, Prisons, Education, and Justice, you’ll have an unparalleled opportunity to learn why the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world and how race, class, politics, history, gender, inequality, and law relate to mass incarceration in the United States.
Michael Goldstein/Provided
College Scholars Program students from the College of Arts & Sciences visit the Johnson Museum.
The pinnacle of the liberal arts experience
Robert S. Harrison College Scholar Program
Students design their own interdisciplinary major, organized around a question or issue of interest, and pursue a course of study that cannot be found in an established major. Harrison College Scholars explore subjects with a broader integration of related disciplines than most students would attempt.
Jesse Winter
Louise Wang outside the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse, where she worked this summer, in New York City.
A deep dive into the humanities
Humanities Scholars Program
This program offers a signature learning, research and collaboration opportunity for undergraduate students across the university who are interested in the humanities.
Students in the Milstein Program in Technology & Humanity combine Cornell’s renowned liberal arts and sciences classes in Ithaca with the 21st century tech curriculum at Cornell Tech in NYC.
Summer opportunities are crucial to student career success, but these life-changing experiences frequently offer little to no funding. That’s a critical barrier for many of our students – and one that the College of Arts and Sciences feels is vital to overcome.
The Summer Experiences Grants (SEG) do just that. They support students with living expenses, transportation, and travel so that these essential experiences are available to all of our students, who may otherwise not be able to afford them.
Research, scholarship and creative works to understand humanity and the cosmos
Curiosity is the driver for research in A&S. From the dendrochronology lab where archaeologists analyze tree-ring growth to understand climate change to the linguistics department where students created a new language for a Captain Marvel movie, our students and faculty take full advantage of all that our world-class research university encompasses.
With opportunities spanning the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities, research here takes place in laboratories, museums, field sites, libraries, hospitals, greenhouses, performance spaces and archives.
Chris Kitchen
Alexa Easley is working to develop materials for low-energy carbon capture that are organic and easy to make on large scales and in realistic conditions.
Premier postdocs
Klarman Fellowships
This premier postdoctoral fellowship program offers opportunities for early-career scholars of outstanding talent, initiative and promise to devote themselves to frontline, innovative research without being tied to specific outcomes.
Chris Kitchen
Students Sneah Singhi ’26, left, and David Behdad ’25 work in the observation room at the B.A.B.Y Lab, which studies infant language acquisition.
Undergraduate research opportunities
Nexus Scholars Program
The Nexus Scholars Program in the College of Arts & Sciences provides undergraduate students with summer opportunities to work side by side with faculty from all across the college (humanities, social sciences, and STEM) on their research projects.
Chris Kitchen
Anderson, left, and Peraino, right traced the arc of Anderson's multi-decade career.
Open your mind
Arts Unplugged series
The College of Arts & Sciences’ Arts Unplugged series brings research and creative works into the public sphere for discussion and inspiration. These outreach events invite a broad audience to explore the work of scholars and faculty from all disciplines, all backgrounds and all time periods and to celebrate the impact that work continues to have on our daily lives.
Noël Heaney/Cornell University
Natalie Wolchover speaks March 15 in Lewis Auditorium.
Engagement for an informed society
Distinguished Visiting Journalist Program
The College of Arts & Sciences' Distinguished Visiting Journalist Program brings accomplished journalists to Cornell for extended visits. The program aims to recognize excellence in journalism and to provide opportunities for select journalists and the university community to engage with each other.