2023-2024 Academic Catalog
Division of Social Sciences
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 Return to: College of Graduate and Undergraduate Studies
The Division of Social Sciences at Life University includes degrees in Psychology, Environment and Sustainability, and Biopsychology. “Social Sciences” include all of those academic disciplines that take a scientific approach to understanding human life, relationships, and behavior. At Life University, we see this work as an essential part of a vitalistic curriculum that promotes the thriving of all people, communities, and living and non-living nature. The faculty and administration of Life U’s division of Social Science share the following understanding of our field:
- Social science should help us think critically and see the world differently. Critical thinking about our lives and the systems in which we live reveals that “the way things are” is not inevitable. Our world is formed from histories, circumstances, experiences, and lives together; we can always learn to see–and live–in radically new and different ways.
- Social science should empower us to imagine new possibilities and bring them into reality. Thinking critically about systems improves our capacity to be agents of social change, people who can build the world we wish to see in our personal and collective lives.
- Study should not be limited to the classroom or research laboratory: Social Science should keep us connected to the communities where we live and work, and it should involve practical, hands-on learning, teaching, and research. We believe in providing experiential and service learning opportunities for students, and we believe in sharing resources and building partnerships that strengthen communities in Marietta, Metro Atlanta, Cobb County, and across Georgia.
- Social science shows that we are interdependent at every level. Our personal lives and experiences are bound up with and depend on our lives in society and relationships with our communities and environment, as well as with human and non-human beings across the world. Whether we are studying the human mind and body, people in society, or human communities and their environments, we recognize that each of these areas of study touches on the others.
- Social science must be rooted in mutual responsibility and integrity. Our research questions and the topics we study emerge from our lives and experiences in community with others, and from visions of the public good. As social scientists–students, teachers, or researchers–we are responsible for naming those visions and evaluating how we are contributing to them.
Taken together, these elements shape our vision of a curriculum that can empower students to be servant leaders capable of reimagining, restoring, and remaking communities, their lives, and the world. Our vocation as faculty and administrators is to invite students into this approach to social scientific study. At the same time, we are committed to meeting students where they are. One of our foremost responsibilities is to take our students’ needs and goals seriously. This means, first, that we seek to provide accessible resources and support for students to reach the next step in learning, no matter where they are on that journey. It means in addition that we always try to provide practical knowledge, tools, and opportunities that will benefit students in meaningful, material ways.
Department of Psychology
Programs
Department of Environment and Sustainability
Programs
Return to: College of Graduate and Undergraduate Studies
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