University of Wyoming. College of Arts and Sciences

Upon the University's founding in 1886 the College of Arts and Sciences began as the Collegiate Department, which was in charge of the liberal arts curriculum. Students had the option to take a four year course in classical, literary, philosophical, or scientific studies, and was the main curriculum at the University. By 1900, the department became the College of Liberal Arts. In 1956, the name was changed to the College of Arts and Sciences. The College was the largest and most diverse academic unit at the University. It offered bachelors, masters, and doctorate degrees in several areas including humanities, fine arts, social sciences, physical sciences, and mathematics.

The College of Arts and Sciences began as the Collegiate Department upon the University of Wyoming's founding in 1886 and was responsible for the liberal arts curriculum at the University. Originally housed in Old Main, five professors and two tutors taught more than 100 required and elective courses within the Collegiate Department and offered students bachelors degrees in either arts, philosophy, letters or science.

After Wyoming received statehood in 1890 the amount of faculty doubled, and student enrollment virtually tripled. In 1891, the Collegiate Department became the College of Liberal Arts. Following on the heals of the Great Depression, the Work Progress Administration partially funded the construction of a new Liberal Arts Building in 1935 which contained 30 classrooms and 40 offices. Student contributions comprised a large part of the construction; they cut stones from a quarry northeast of Laramie for the building and dug the sewer mains as well. In 1956, the College of Liberal Arts became the College of Arts and Sciences. By 1964 the oil boom funded the intellectual and physical expansion of the College, and soon after it grew to include 20 departments. The college separated Anthropology, Sociology and Geography in 1966, and created the departments of Social Work (1970), Computer Science (1971), Criminal Justice, or the Administration of Justice (1973), Gender and Womens Studies (1977), and Chicano and Religious Studies.

The College was the largest and most diverse academic unit at the University. Eventually the College of Arts and Sciences grew to include 22 departments, 15 interdepartmental programs and approximately 375 faculty members, the largest of the University's colleges. The college also offered bachelors, masters, and doctorate degrees in five divisions: humanities, fine arts, humanities, social sciences, physical sciences, and biological sciences.