Why CAL?

Students studying CAL develop skills, values, and perspectives across a wide range of subjects, giving them a deep understanding of human culture, ethics, and leadership. Students leave the unique program prepared to contribute to a better future—whether in law, education, business, government, or nonprofit organizations, or through graduate studies.

Our students gain the following marketable proficiencies:

Capacity for Leadership

Positive civic intervention requires thoughtful, energetic leadership. Through coursework, collaborative projects, and engagement experiences, students develop versatile skills in public speaking, civil discourse, problem solving, and critical thinking.

Cultivation of Civic Virtues

In civic engagement, character matters. In the course of their studies, students cultivate respect, courage, cooperation, humility, empathy, and above all, practical wisdom.

Responsible Community Engagement

Civic engagement is delicate work, and it’s easy to do harm when you’re trying to do good. Building relationships with communities and organizations beyond campus, students learn to responsibly and ethically navigate the possibilities and challenges of reciprocal community partnerships.

Advanced Cultural Analysis

You need to understand how the world works if you want to make a difference. Students learn to use methods drawn from across the humanities and social sciences to understand the complexities of contemporary institutions, traditions, practices, and communities.

Public Scholarship

Expertise is for everybody. Students learn how to share their emerging specializations with broad audiences by creating projects that open academic knowledge to public understanding.