Our Mission
Through experiential learning, guided inquiry, and debate, the College of Humanities and Social Sciences cultivates ways of knowing so students can flourish in and positively impact the global community.
Deepening Global Understanding
We foster a love of learning and a deep understanding of diverse human experiences, cultures, and perspectives, to empower our students to engage meaningfully with the world around them. We believe that the humanities and social sciences play a critical role in addressing the most pressing social, cultural, and political issues of our time. By promoting a global outlook and a sensitivity to intercultural differences, we seek to prepare our graduates to thrive in an increasingly interconnected and complex world.
Engaging Faculty
Our faculty engage in innovative and interdisciplinary research and teaching that challenge conventional assumptions and cultivate new perspectives. We are dedicated to promoting critical thinking and inquiry across all areas of study, encouraging our students to ask questions, seek answers, and develop informed and independent perspectives so that they become ethical leaders and agents of positive social change who are equipped with skills and knowledge to navigate complex challenges with compassion, creativity, and intellectual rigor.
We embrace the shared values of our disciplines: free inquiry and debate; equity and justice; academic and intellectual rigor and integrity; intense curiosity and the pursuit of truth. We collaborate actively: among Schools and Colleges, among departments, and with the students and the communities we serve. We teach and learn in a spirit and practice that is broad-minded, radically inclusive, utterly respectful and grounded in critical and humane thought. We honor knowledge for its own sake and for its ability to make change in the world. We believe that the values, methods, standards and ideas of the Humanities and Social Sciences are the foundation of good citizenship and good stewardship, locally, nationally and globally.
Accolades and Points of Distinction
Webster University holds membership in the American Association for Paralegal Education.
The BA, MA in legal studies and paralegal certificates, at the St. Louis campus only, are approved by the American Bar Association (ABA). Few legal studies programs in the U.S. have received ABA approval.
Webster has been the recipient of two National Professional Development grants from the U.S. Department of Education, which have provided free tuition for more than 200 teachers across Missouri to complete their Missouri ELL Certification.
Webster University alumni Shirley LeFlore ‘76 and Jane Ellen Ibur '73 were selected as back-to-back poet laureates of the City of St. Louis in 2018. The late David Clewell, a longtime professor of English and creative writing in the former College of Arts and Sciences, served as poet laureate of the State of Missouri from 2010-12.
In 2022, alumna Antoinette Brim-Bell was named poet laureate for the state of Connecticut.
The College of Humanities and Social Sciences also houses several specialty and interdisciplinary centers:
- Le Centre Francophone provides a myriad of educational opportunities from French speakers to film festivals and cooking classes.
- The Institute for Human Rights and Humanitarian Studies houses one of the only Human Rights majors in the country and gives students the opportunity to publish their work in the undergraduate journal “Righting Wrongs: A Journal of Human Rights.”
- Students from Criminology and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies have completed internships with the Webster University WILLOW Project (Women Initiate Legal Lifelines to Other Women). This organization works to offer access to the justice system for people who have been without a voice in it in the past and who have been wrongfully convicted because of the lack of a voice.
Learn More
Founded in 1915, Founded in 1915, Webster is an independent nonprofit university with students studying at campus locations in North America, Europe and Asia, and in a robust online learning environment. With its main campus in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, Webster University’s network of faculty, staff, students and alumni forge powerful bonds with each other and their communities around the globe. The University is committed to engaged learning experiences and empowering our students to become catalysts for change. Prepare for your next step and explore our community resources.
