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The place to find your place

Unlimited options and unwavering support to prepare you for life and any career you choose.

It all starts here.

Canvas outage Penn State and many other universities are currently experiencing a Canvas outage, related to an ongoing security incident affecting Instructure, the vendor that provides the Canvas platform. The University is actively working with Instructure to monitor the situation, assess potential impacts, and restore normal service as quickly as possible. Ongoing updates are available on Penn State News.

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Meet our community

Get to know some of our talented Liberal Arts students, alumni, and faculty members. These stories highlight the diverse backgrounds and accomplishments of our community and the impact they are making.

Hamad Hussain named Liberal Arts college marshal for summer 2026 commencement

Hamad Hussain represented the Penn State College of the Liberal Arts and College of Earth and Mineral Sciences as college marshal at the 2026 summer commencement ceremony. The triple major in international politics, global and international studies, and energy business and finance said the recognition made all of his hard work worth it. “My Penn State education gave me the analytical, financial and geopolitical foundation I’ll rely on throughout my career,” he said.

Learn More About Summer 2026 Commencement

Team effort guides publication of late Liberal Arts dean Susan Welch’s last book

During her distinguished 28-year tenure as dean of Penn State’s College of the Liberal Arts, the late Susan Welch always managed to carve out time in her busy schedule for scholarly research. She spent the final decade of her life researching and writing a book devoted to the Holocaust. However, not long after turning in the manuscript, she died on March 28, 2022. Four and a half years later, the finished book, “The Hunted: The Holocaust through the Experiences of Twenty European Jews” (Berghahn Books), has finally seen the light of day, thanks to the efforts of a group led by Welch’s brother, Robert Welch, and Lee Ann Banaszak, professor of political science and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at Penn State.

Read the Penn State News Story

Inaugural Liberal Arts Semester in Washington Program inspires new career choices

Alivia Reid-Pitta is one of 10 Penn State students that participated in the inaugural Liberal Arts Semester in Washington Program this past summer. Through the program, Alivia was able to apply her interests and studies to real life. “I’ve always been interested in lobbying and government relations,” Reid-Pitta said. “This experience has shown me what that work actually looks like every day. It’s made me even more excited about pursuing it after graduation.”

Learn More About the Semester in Washington Program

Students soak up Spanish culture on summer faculty-led program in Ronda

This past summer, a group of Penn State students traveled to Ronda, Spain and lived with local families, went on cultural excursions, and attended lectures about Spanish geography, culture, grammar and communication. Like others before them, the students traveled to the cities of Seville, Granada and Málaga, where they visited the Cathedral of Seville and La Giralda, the Real Alcazar, and the Alhambra, a palace and fortress complex in Granada.

https://la.psu.edu/faculty-led-courses

Chapel Intern puts global perspective to work in corporate citizenship

Chapel intern and fourth-year global and international studies student, Osakiodeme Ikhinmwin, completed an internship with Aramco Americas in Houston—an experience that allowed her to put concepts from her liberal arts coursework into practice. “My coursework has helped give me a framework for understanding organizations through the lens of culture, communication and global context,” Ikhinmwin said. “That perspective was especially relevant during my internship working across a variety of stakeholder groups.”

Learn more about the Chapel Internship Program

Matson Museum director awarded Fulbright for book project

James Doyle, director of Penn State’s Matson Museum of Anthropology and research professor of anthropology, has received a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award for the 2026-27 academic year. Doyle will use the six-month grant to conduct research in Panama for his forthcoming book, “Gran Coclé: The Royal Arts of Ancestral Panama,” which will be published by the University of Texas Press.

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College of the Liberal Arts creates Department of Africana Studies

The reunification of the Department of African American Studies and the African Studies Program was approved and finalized in summer 2026. “This is a pivotal next step for Penn State and our college to take to strengthen the interdisciplinary study of Africa and people of African descent as a critical component of a liberal arts education,” said Clarence Lang, Susan Welch Dean of the College of the Liberal Arts. “The reunification heightens our ability to solidify the academic and scholarly interconnections between African and African American Studies and build on the complexities that a unified field can advance. It also aligns our approach with those taken being taken by our counterparts in the Big Ten and elsewhere and better positions us as leaders in the field in terms of student success and faculty productivity.”

Kleppinger intern gains firsthand experience in Pennsylvania public policy

Alexa Pippy, one of three Kleppinger interns from this past summer, worked as a government relations intern for Allegheny Strategy Partners, tracking daily developments in Pennsylvania legislation and completing client-facing work and policy research. One of the projects she was particularly proud of involved work with the Pennsylvania Coalition to Advance Respect, researching how funding for PCAR-supported services could continue during a budget impasse and explored potential legislative options to stabilize funding.

Learn more about the Kleppinger Internship Program

Pursue your passions

The College of the Liberal Arts is home to nearly 150 undergraduate majors, minors, integrated undergraduate-graduate degrees (IUGs), associate degrees, and certificates.
There is truly something for everyone.

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Anthropology
Anthropological Science
Communication Arts and Sciences
English
Psychology (Life Sciences Option or Neuroscience Option)
Teaching English as a Second Language (TESOL)
Women’s Studies

A liberal arts major helped recent graduate John Miller develop a greater worldly perspective, improve his communication skills, and see how people experience life in different ways—traits that have benefitted the Paterno Fellow on his unique path to medical school. Read his story.

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Students in the humanities study how people process and document the human experience. Most majors in the humanities build widely transferable skills that employers appreciate and go on to be writers, counselors, event organizers, social media managers, fundraisers, travel bloggers, and more.

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The social sciences examine the relationships between individuals and societies, as well as the development and operation of societies. The critical thinking, research, and analytical skills gained in a social science major help prepare graduates for diverse job titles, including economist, psychologist, political scientist, historian, postsecondary teacher, museum curator, and social worker.

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Intercultural communication, critical thinking and reasoning, cultural adaptability, information and trend analysis, and the other skills that drive the global economy, are in high demand today. Language graduates find jobs in tourism, international development, marketing, policy making, journalism, government, and more.

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Explore our Research

Discover how Liberal Arts research is making a difference across disciplines, and explore the impact we’re creating together.

Mark your calendar

The College of the Liberal Arts hosts more than 200 events
throughout the year for students, alumni, faculty, staff, and the community.
Visit our events calendar to see the full list of upcoming events.
Below are the annual student events.