In keeping with the mission statement of Western Connecticut State University, the Department of History and Non-Western Cultures provides a comprehensive liberal arts education that prepares students for the job market and beyond. Our mission is to help students develop expertise in analyzing historical themes and to prepare them for employment in teaching or other specialized fields such as business, journalism, and law, or for graduate work in history.

The goals are:

• To provide an interdisciplinary forum in which students can deal with political, social, cultural, religious, economic, and geographic aspects of history.
• To introduce students to non-Western cultures and help them understand global political and cultural relations.
• To help students develop their abilities to think critically, discuss, and explain clearly historical issues and problems.
• To cultivate writing, research, and analysis skills that will help students lead successful professional and personal lives.
• To provide a history/education curriculum that imparts a broad base of knowledge about historical events, principles, and theories, so that students have the foundational knowledge they need to educate others.
• To facilitate our students? understanding of their national and community heritage.