PROGRAM  DESCRIPTION

    The College of Social Studies of Wesleyan University was founded in 1959 in order to offer a coordinated, multidisciplinary program in the fields of government, history, economics, and philosophy. The College encourages a capacity for intellectual independence and uses a mixture of conventional grades and special CSS grading modes to foster this in tutorials, seminars, colloquia, and courses. Close and sustained contact between students and their tutors is an important feature of the CSS, with the proximity of faculty offices, classrooms, and social areas fostering significant informal academic (and nonacademic) exchange.

    The program was created in the belief that the various social studies can best be pursued together, rather than in isolation, and that the student will better understand the subject matter and the nature of each discipline by considering it in its relation to the other disciplines. The intent of the CSS is to introduce students to the basic theoretical and substantive aspects of several disciplines, and to develop a sense of methodological criticism supported by work in philosophy. The curriculum stresses fundamental techniques of analysis in economics, history, and government, as well as their application in the subject matter of those fields. Precision in writing and speaking is stressed in essays and class work. A number of lectures and seminars provide a sense of community that balances the educational aspect of the College.

    Interested students apply for admission to the CSS during their freshman year at Wesleyan. The College's reputation for both diversity and intensity leads to a high degree of self-selection in the applicant pool.

    The sophomore and junior programs are closely connected. The tutorials and colloquium in the sophomore year provide an integrated account of the emergence of modern social, political, and economic systems. The Economics tutorial covers the history of economic theories and doctrines from the mercantilist period to Keynes; the Government tutorial examines the emergence of the modern nation-state, including democratic capitalist, fascist, and communist systems; the History tutorial focuses on European history since the French Revolution; the Colloquium in Social Theory provides an overview of the major theories of society from Hobbes to Freud. The jun-ior philosophy colloquium studies the different modes of inquiry in the social sciences, using texts and examples from the sophomore tutorials. Building on these courses, the junior tutorials examine the post-WW II era. While the specific topics covered vary from year to year, major themes include the increasing globalization of cultural, economic and political processes, the retreat of European colonial empires, changing strategies of development among less developed countries, the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, and the emergence of and growing challenges to the welfare and regulatory state in advanced industrial societies. The College attempts to plan the tutorials so that there will be specific linkages between the sophomore and junior years.

    In addition to a CSS seminar in the first semester, the senior year involves a substantial piece of written work. This is often but not invariably an Honors thesis. In all cases it is a large-scale, sustained, and serious investigation of an intellectual problem. Constant supervision and regular conferences with the student's tutors ensure a continuous evaluation of student performance. At the end of each trimester in the sophomore year the tutor places a written evaluation in each student's file, and these may provide the basis for letters of recommendation written by tutors and Co-Chairmen. A Comprehensive Examination given at the end of the sophomore year covers all CSS work done by the student over that year and is conducted by the sophomore tutors. The exam includes standard essay examination questions spread over the four fields, and a concluding oral examination. The grading system for the sophomore examination is explained in the box at the center of this page. Apart from the sophomore tutorials and colloquium and these special examinations, CSS students are graded in the same manner as other Wesleyan students, as may be seen from the transcript.

    The Sophomore Comprehensive Examinations provide a partial evaluation of a student's overall performance after a year of intensive tutorials in economics, government, and history as well as a colloquium in social theory. As a partial evaluation, it does not necessarily reflect the quality of the student's written work and class contribution in the tutorials and colloquium, where no grades are given. These Examinations serve in large part as an exercise allowing students to synthesize and integrate their course work for the year, and the grades must not be construed as a complete evaluation of the student's work in the College during the sophomore year. (For a description of these grades see the note at the end.)

    On the basis of the student's performance in tutorials, seminars, and colloquia, the Comprehensive Examination, and other courses the tutors may make recommendations for Phi Beta Kappa. In addition to sophomore examination grades, tutors' letters of recommendation constitute an exceptionally significant evaluation of the student's career in the CSS. Such letters to graduate and professional schools and fellowship committees are based upon genuine personal knowledge of the student and the collected tutorial and colloquium evaluations of the student's CSS career.

*Prior to 1995 this grade was listed as "Creditable."