Colleges
Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts & Letters
The Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters consists of the departments of Anthropology, English, History, Languages, Linguistics and Comparative Literature, Philosophy, Political Science, and Sociology, the School of Architecture, the School of Communication and Multimedia Studies, the School of Public Administration, the School of Interdisciplinary Studies, and, housed under the School of the Arts, the departments of Theatre and Dance, Music, and Visual Arts and Art History.
Interdisciplinary certificates are offered in Asian Studies, Caribbean and Latin American Studies, Classical Studies, English as a Second Language (ESL), Ethics, Law, and Society, Ethnic Studies, Film and Video Studies, Peace Studies, Professional and Technical Writing, Translation, and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. The College offers several interdisciplinary degrees: B.A. degrees in Interdisciplinary Studies and Jewish Studies and an M.A. degree in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Its innovative Ph.D. degree in Comparative Studies offers three tracks: Cultures, Languages and Literatures (CLL), Culture, Society and Politics (CSP) and Design, Aesthetics and the Arts (DAA). It also offers a PhD in Public Administration.
Through programs located at multiple campuses, the College offers opportunities for advanced study in the arts, humanities and social sciences. The educational experience is enhanced by the host of cultural events presented by the College including theater productions, art exhibits, concerts, and lectures by visiting scholars. These programs draw thousands of community members to the University every year.
College of Business
The College of Business opened its doors to upper-division undergraduate students for the first time in September of 1964. Today, the College offers an array of business courses, programs, majors, and minors on three campuses and via distance learning technologies. Majors include Accounting, Business Economics, Finance, Health Services, Management Information Systems, Management, International Business, and Marketing. Degrees are awarded at the bachelors, masters, and doctoral levels and the business programs are accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, AACSB International. The College also offers a variety of non-degree Executive Education courses and certificates for the business professional. Its faculty members are diverse and dedicated, and greatly add to the College's reputation.
The College's organizational structure ensures that academic programs and business and community outreach activities are relevant and meaningful. It boasts a number of institutes, centers, and advisory boards to support this mandate. All of these entities serve as conduits for the interchange of the most current theoretical and practical applications of business concepts. These exchanges influence the content of the degree programs which provides our students with an education that enables them to become successful in the business community. At the same time, the business community reaps the benefits of both the knowledge of our outstanding faculty and the abilities of our students.
College of Social Work and Criminal Justice
The immense faculty expertise and strong community partnerships within our schools produce graduates who are prepared to make a difference. Our alumni enter the fields of social work and criminal justice fully trained to analyze, implement and evaluate criminal justice and social welfare policies, practices, and technologies; address discriminatory systems and processes; provide direct services to vulnerable and marginalized populations; and promote justice and equitable outcomes for individuals, families, and communities in South Florida and beyond.
College of Education
One of the original colleges of the University, the College of Education became the first public provider of educational professionals in South Florida. The College continues to build on its 40-year tradition of quality in preparing leaders for the schools of the State. In 2007, the College received re-accreditation from the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). The College offers degree programs at the bachelors, masters, specialist and doctoral levels. A variety of these programs is offered on all campuses. The College is committed to pursuing innovative avenues to preparing teachers for the 21st Century. Currently the college is collaborating with the area school districts to provide extensive field-based experiences for future teachers. In addition, the resources of the Karen Slattery Childcare Center, the A.D. Henderson University School, the FAU High School, the Pine Jog Environmental Education Center and the Everglades Youth Camp are available to enrich the educational experiences of the students.
College of Engineering and Computer Science
The College of Engineering and Computer Science is committed to providing accessible and responsive programs of undergraduate and graduate education and research recognized nationally for their high quality, and to be the institution of choice for regional students, business and industry. The College's partnerships with the business, governmental and educational communities are vital components of our day-to-day existence.
Through its nationally accredited programs in Engineering and Computer Science, the College provides an environment to educate those who will contribute to the advancement of technical knowledge and who will be leaders of tomorrow, to conduct basic and applied research in engineering, computer science, and related interdisciplinary areas, and to provide service to the engineering and computer science professions, to the State of Florida, to the nation, and to the community at large. The College's Innovation Leadership Honors Program for high achieving undergraduate students was developed through the strong partnership the College has with its Executive Advisory Council and incorporates leadership, innovation and entrepreneurship into the existing engineering and computer science curricula. A joint BS/MS degree program allows students to earn a Master's degree while completing requirements for their BS degree. The College also collaborates with the College of Business to offer a minor in business in all master's degree programs in engineering. A minor in Computer Science for any baccalaureate program is available through the Department of Computer and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College
The Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College of Florida Atlantic University, which opened in the fall of 1999, is the first public honors institution in the nation to be built from the ground up. Its pioneering interdisciplinary curriculum, with a strong emphasis on international and environmental studies, is positioning FAU's Honors College to be Florida's premiere selective public institution for the 21st century. Its intellectual foundation is a belief in liberal arts education as the best preparation for a full and productive life.
Admission criteria to FAU's Honors College are highly selective. The Honors College looks for students whose scholastic performance and abilities demonstrate an active approach to learning and the potential for academic growth. Its degree program, leading to the Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences, is designed to develop the qualities of a free and responsible citizen, one who can reason clearly, read critically and analytically, argue persuasively in speech and writing, and contribute to society in fundamental and innovative ways.
Students choose areas of concentration from the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences. While completing this degree, students are active participants in the design of their own education, and they will also acquire the life-long skill of learning independently. By providing broad intellectual training in the arts and sciences, and specialized study in an area of concentration, the Honors College prepares its students for graduate and professional schools such as law, medicine and education, as well as for careers in business, science, and government.
Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine
On June 23, 2010, the Board of Trustees of Florida Atlantic University approved the renaming of the Charles E. Schmidt College of Biomedical Science to the Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine. In February 2011, the College was granted preliminary accreditation by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, leading the way for the charter medical school class of 64 students to enter in Fall 2011. Establishment of the public medical school at FAU enabled FAU to provide access to medical education at a significantly lower cost for students. Student and residency training will be made available throughout hospitals in Palm Beach and Broward counties.
In addition to offering the M.D. degree, FAU proposes to offer a dual M.D./Ph.D. option in partnership with the Scripps Institute Kellogg School of Science and Technology, which would confer a doctorate degree. This will enable FAU to produce physician-scientists with the knowledge and skills required to transform health care and biomedical research in the state of Florida.
The College is comprised of two departments: The Department of Integrated Medical Science, which has a major teaching role for medical students, and the Department of Biomedical Science, which is heavily committed to medical student education as well as providing opportunities for students to participate in graduate studies through our Masters Degree in Biomedical Science. A third department, the Department of Clinical Programs, is being created. Research is also a major mission of the Department of Biomedical Science. The faculty in this department has been extraordinarily successful in obtaining extramural funding for their research endeavors. The Ph.D. Degree in Integrative Biology, offered by the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, allows students to pursue interests across several interdisciplinary fields including biomedical science, serving as a collaborative effort of faculty with appointments in both the College of Science and College of Biomedical Science. A Certificate in Biomedical Science is also available. The College also houses the Disaster and Emergency Healthcare Training Facility which offers Basic Life Support, Advanced Cardiac Life Support and other advanced level courses for Healthcare and Non-Healthcare providers as well as medical students and residents. Medical simulation helps to bridge the distance between health care education and community-based health care practice and provides real time experience for all health professionals as well as members of the lay community.
Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing
The Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing is recognized nationally and internationally for its innovative approaches to nursing education within a caring philosophy. It is dedicated to caring: expanding the science, studying the meaning, practicing the art, and living caring day by day. The College creates a context for learning that respects and celebrates the interconnectedness of people and their environments, and prepares nurses to deliver exemplary health care in a multi-cultural society, including urban and rural under-served areas. The College offers accredited baccalaureate and masters programs of study on three campuses and doctoral programs on the Boca Raton campus. Students have the opportunity to study the discipline and profession of nursing from a caring based perspective, with faculty who are passionate about nursing. Courses throughout the curriculum are centered in the study of nursing as nurturing the wholeness of persons and environment through caring.
In 2007, the College received the LEED certification at the Gold level from the US Green Building Council. The College of Nursing is the first building in southeast Florida and the only College of Nursing nationally to receive this award. The award reflects the college's commitment to design and construct a healthy, healing and sustainable space.
Charles E. Schmidt College of Science
The Charles E. Schmidt College of Science is the primary source of science research and education for more than three million people living and working in FAU's service region of Southeast Florida. Through its academic departments and research centers, the College provides outstanding opportunities for both undergraduate and graduate science majors. The College’s faculty and programs extend across the University’s 120 mile South Florida service region, including Davie, Boca Raton, Jupiter, and the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute.
In addition to the eight academic departments in the College – Biological Sciences, Chemistry and Biochemistry, Exercise Science and Health Promotion, Geosciences, Mathematical Sciences, Physics, Psychology and Urban and Regional Planning – there is a group of strong interdisciplinary and sub-disciplinary research centers engaged in cutting-edge research. These include: The Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences, the Center for Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, the Center for Urban and Environmental Solutions, the Center for Geo-Information Sciences, the Center for Environmental Studies, the Center for Cryptology and Information Security, and the Center for Biological and Materials Physics.
The College’s Pre-Health Professions Office provides a range of services and involvement activities to students pursuing professional careers in health, including medical school committee interview preparation (such as mock interviews), specialized advising, workshop series, information sessions and leadership development opportunities.
Research and scholarship are central to the mission of the College and play vital roles in the life of FAU's Charles E. Schmidt College of Science. External research funding, the great majority of it coming from federal agencies such as the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, underwrites major research programs by faculty and students. Science faculty have active collaborations that extend not only across FAU’s colleges but also to prestigious research institutions, such as UF Scripps Biomedical Research, and the Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience, as well as affiliations with national laboratories such as the Air Force Research Laboratory, Los Alamos and Oak Ridge National Laboratories, and international collaborations that span the globe.
The Graduate College
The Graduate College was established by the Board of Trustees as FAU's tenth college in October 2007. It is responsible for maintaining general standards of graduate education at the University and for coordinating and overseeing the following activities: graduate student recruitment, graduate admissions, graduate policies and procedures, graduate student financial support, new graduate courses and programs, monitoring graduate student progression towards completing the degree, thesis and dissertation submission standards, and degree completion requirements as established by the graduate faculty of the various graduate programs.
It is responsible for allocating all graduate student matriculation and non-resident fee waivers, graduate recruitment grants and fellowships, approval of graduate student Plan of to waive a university regulation, approval of Academic Progression Plans for graduate students on academic warning, approval of the Research Compliance and Safety form, final approval of theses and dissertations, and final graduate degree certification.
The Graduate College works closely with the Graduate Council to establish policies and procedures to maintain high quality and university-wide consistent standards. It works with the Graduate Programs Committee to approve new graduate courses and programs, and the Due Process Committee to establish and enforce uniform standards by which graduate students are assured due process.