The mission and goals of the Social Science Department are consistent with those of the University of Wisconsin-Stout and the College of Arts and Sciences in that we value innovative learning experiences that will enable our students/graduates to develop broad, tolerant, and cosmopolitan perspectives so that they will be better prepared to function in a diverse, demanding, and global society.
The Social Science Department is composed of the anthropology and sociology/social work, economics, history and geography, and political science disciplines. Its primary mission is to teach courses to students seeking to fulfill the general education requirement, to achieve more advanced study as part of their selected major program, or to acquire a minor in economics, history, or sociology or a specialization in International Studies, and to provide support for professional programs.
Given its multi-disciplinary composition, the Social Science Department is uniquely positioned to offer many and varied courses designed to increase students’ understanding and appreciation of the historical and contemporary diversity of national and global society.
The department supports faculty/staff scholarly work relevant to the respective missions the College and University, and encourages leadership, professional service, and participation in the shared governance of the University.
It is the Social Science Department’s mission to provide professional expertise in the aforementioned fields, serving as a resource for the College, University and the community.
Statement of Shared Values
Department members in the Social Sciences share an interest in the success of our department, our students, and the program in Applied Social Science. To further the department mission and encourage a climate of shared solidarity, creativity, and excellence, we value the following:
- Academic freedom. This includes autonomy in the classroom to pursue innovative teaching and learning strategies, autonomy to pursue unencumbered research initiatives and diverse forms of scholarship that advance our teaching and contribute to our respective fields of study, autonomy to gather evidence and develop arguments that challenge familiar points of view, autonomy to pursue diverse applications of the social sciences to address the challenges facing the surrounding community and global society in general, and autonomy to pursue diverse forms of service to the university.
- Diversity. This includes diversity in backgrounds, experiences, and ideas among department members and students, and encouragement of positive, respectful, civil, and supportive relationships in our classrooms and the department.
- Empowerment. This includes the empowerment of students through social science education, within and outside the classroom, to confront pressing social challenges as engaged citizens, and empowerment through critical thinking and considerate engagement with issues of social justice and the varied forms of inequality in our society today.
- Democracy. This includes participatory, collective, and democratic decision-making in matters that directly affect department members (faculty, staff, and students) and the future of the Social Science Department.
- Consensus-building. This includes cooperation, openness, transparency, honesty, shared governance, compromise, and recognition that respectful disagreement is both inevitable and ultimately beneficial for furthering the department mission.