University of Oregon College of Arts and Sciences
The University of Oregon College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) is the largest academic unit of the University of Oregon (UO) in Eugene, Oregon, United States. The main offices of the college are located in Friendly Hall on the UO campus. Through its 45 departments and programs—spanning the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences—CAS offers the core liberal arts curriculum that serves the entire undergraduate population of the UO.
![]() Friendly Hall, the location of CAS offices | |
Type | Public |
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Dean | Bruce Blonigen (Interim) |
Location | , , US |
Website | cas |
CAS typically has approximately 11,000 undergraduates majoring in its 47 major fields of study at any given time. At the graduate level, CAS offers 30 graduate degree programs and grants approximately three-quarters of UO's doctoral degrees.
CAS is also the research hub of the UO, with nearly 500 tenure-track faculty, or 60% of the UO total. CAS research faculty generate more than half the sponsored research at UO and the academic accomplishments of CAS faculty provide the basis for the UO's membership in the Association of American Universities.
Programs
CAS offers 47 undergraduate major fields of study; the top ten most popular majors are: psychology, human physiology, economics, biology, general social sciences, political science, computer and information science, environmental studies, sociology, and English.
Facilities
The College of Arts and Sciences departments are housed in nearly 50 buildings across campus, including three of the UO's oldest buildings—Deady Hall, Villard Hall, and Friendly Hall—as well as newer buildings that are part of the science complex, such as Willamette Hall, Deschutes Hall, and the Robert and Beverly Lewis Integrative Science Building.
Opening Fall 2019 will be the Tykeson Hall College & Careers Building, a campus hub for integrated career/academic advising resources that will help students chart their academic path through general education classes and CAS majors, while also providing students a clear understanding of potential careers associated with all those paths. Tykeson Hall will serve as a campus-wide advising center for first-year students from all colleges, a classroom building with 350 seats, a social gathering area, and a place to receive tutoring in introductory composition and math classes. It will also be home to the CAS dean's office, the Career Center, and the Office of Equity and Inclusion.
People
Notable alumni
- Kent Beck, B.S., M.S. (1987), software engineer, creator of Extreme Programming, Test Driven Development, and pioneer of agile software development
- Pamela J. Bjorkman, B.A. (1971), pioneer in x-ray crystallography, Max Delbruck Professor of Biology at California Institute of Technology
- Walter Houser Brattain, M.A. (1926), co-winner of 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics
- Douglas Hofstadter, M.S. (1972) and PhD (1975), Professor of cognitive science, Pulitzer Prize winner for general non-fiction (1980), author of Gödel, Escher, Bach
- Renée James, B.A. (1986) and MBA (1992), former President, Intel Corporation and CEO and Chair of Ampere Computing
- Daniel Levitin, M.S. (1993) and PhD (1996), cognitive psychologist, neuroscientist, writer, musician and record producer
- William Murphy, B.A. (1914), co-winner of 1934 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- PZ Myers, PhD (1985), biologist and noted science blogger
- Raemer Schreiber, M.A. (1932) physicist and staff of the Manhattan Project
- Joseph Takahashi, PhD (1981), discovered the genetic basis for the mammalian circadian clock in 1994 and identified the CLOCK gene
Notable faculty and staff
- Geraldine Richmond, professor, presidential chair of physical chemistry, environmental chemistry, optics & spectroscopy, contemporary surface science, science literacy; president, American Association for the Advancement of Science (2015); Linus Pauling Medal Award (2018); Priestly Medal (2018)
- David Wineland, research professor, Nobel-laureate physicist
- Ray Hyman, professor emeritus of Psychology, one of the founders of the modern skeptical movement
- Eugene Luks, known for research on the graph isomorphism problem and on algorithms for computational group theory
See also
- University of Oregon Department of Computer and Information Science