LSA Opportunities

Supporting the College

We strive to support our students and faculty on the frontlines of learning and research. Each day, we work to steward our planet, our community, and our campus.

To do this, the College of LSA needs your support.

The college focuses its fundraising work in four key areas: 

ACCESS

LSA is committed to eliminating barriers and ensuring that students who are qualified to attend LSA have the financial means necessary to get here. And once students are in the college, we want to provide them with navigational support as well as the opportunity to build social capital. This includes equal access to research fellowships, study abroad experiences, internships, career counseling, and more.

ENGAGED LEARNING

LSA encourages every one of our students to enhance their classroom experience by engaging in research, study abroad, or internships—and we hope that they are able to do all three. Through programs like our Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program, the internship network in the LSA Opportunity Hub, and others, we provide essential opportunities for students to demonstrate to themselves and others the power and flexibility of their liberal arts degree. When classroom learning meets the broader world, students gain confidence, skills, and understanding of the complexities of culture and the marketplace.

LSA also supports its students in developing creative and innovative solutions for opportunities large and small through leadership and entrepreneurship experiences. The optiMize Social Innovation Challenge asks students to develop real-world solutions to pressing problems with funding from the College to bring their ideas to life. The Barger Leadership Institute fosters leadership learning in new ways for undergraduates, and a new minor in entrepreneurship helps students make impactful change part of their coursework. 

DIVERSITY

LSA classrooms are full of talented and diverse students, and the college is continually striving to enhance opportunities and support for underrepresented groups. Several initiatives foster our work in this area, including the Comprehensive Studies Program and the Kessler Scholarships. Quite simply, diversity is essential for one of the world’s leading universities to produce ideas and graduates that will make an impact in today’s increasingly connected global community. At LSA, we seek not only to reflect society, but also to serve as a model of how bringing people from a range of backgrounds together to do important work can make a vital difference.

ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE

LSA’s commitment to academic excellence starts with recruiting and retaining world-class faculty across the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences so that our students are engaged with a modern curriculum taught by leading experts in their fields. It extends to stress a collaborative approach where all of our tenure-track faculty teach undergraduates, and where students and faculty contribute original knowledge within and across disciplines. We provide a range of faculty support and a rich set of financial and personnel resources for helping faculty to better leverage technological tools in the classroom and more effectively teach large lecture courses. Access to this unparalleled education within the framework of the nation’s top public research university is what makes LSA unlike any other liberal arts college.