The University of Michigan College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA) is the liberal arts and sciences school of the University of Michigan. The college was established in 1841.
The College of Literature, Science, and the Arts was originally designated the Literary Department and was the core of the University of Michigan. From 1841 to 1874, the faculty elected a president that communicated with the regents about department needs. In 1875, Henry Simmons Frieze became the first of the deans of LSA.
The College of Literature, Science, and the Arts consists of three divisions: the Humanities Division, the Natural Sciences Division, and the Social Sciences Division.
The Humanities Division consists of the following academic departments and units:
The Natural Sciences Division consists of the following academic departments and units:
The Social Sciences Division consists of the following academic departments and units:
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The Residential College (RC) is a unit within the Humanities Division at the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts..
Founded in 1967, the Residential College was designed to create a smaller liberal arts program with the resources of a larger university. The college was developed by a planning committee of faculty that included Theodore Newcomb, Carl Cohen, and Bradford Perkins.
Students in the RC take classes in LSA as well as specially designed RC courses, many of which are seminar courses with fewer than fifteen students each. All RC students are required to live in the same residence hall, East Quadrangle, for at least one year. Since the RC is a part of the LSA, all LSA academic requirements apply to its students. In addition to the usual concentrations in LSA, RC students may choose to pursue five additional concentrations (RC website): "Arts and Ideas in the Humanities," "Creative Writing and Literature," "Drama," "Social Theory and Practice," and an option for an "Individualized Major."
A major requirement for RC participation is intensive language training, which consists of two eight-credit courses similar to language immersion, and one four-credit readings course. Intensive Japanese at the RC has no reading courses, and the semi-immersion curriculum consists of two ten-credit courses. The other languages offered are Spanish, French, German, and Russian.