Dean's Office
Hanover is a liberal arts college, but have you ever wondered what "liberal arts" means? If you ask one of our students about the benefits of their Hanover education, they often point quickly to the breadth of their experience. They say that a liberal arts education makes a person "well rounded." But that's just part of the truth; the liberal arts will expose you to many different perspectives and many different subjects or disciplines. A person with a liberal arts education can look at a problem from many angles.
A good introduction to the purpose of the liberal arts comes from the opening paragraph of Hanover College's Academic Vision.
- The Liberal arts are arts suited for free people. The purpose of a liberal arts education is to enable such people to cultivate humanity, to realize their full potential as human beings and as citizens.
- Accordingly, the liberal arts are designed to equip individuals to develop and integrate every dimension of their own humanity - Physical, intellectual, artistic, ethical, and spiritual - and to understand and respect the humanity of others.
- Through critical inquiry, analysis and interpretation, through articulate and respectful argumentation, and through engagement with multiple disciplinary and cultural perspectives, individuals acquire an education that is both ennobling and practical.
- The liberal arts prepare people to gain command of their thoughts and expression, to lead deliberate, examines lives, to acquire wisdom and moral integrity, and to contribute meaningfully to local and international communities.
Whether you browse the Hanover college website or scan course offerings or talk to students about the range of activities that fill their days, you can see the liberal arts at work. You see, the liberal arts is not just something you study. The liberal arts is a way of looking at the world. The liberal arts is a way of living.
A liberal arts education prepares you as well for your last job as it does for your first job. It prepares you to meet the challenges of a changing world. It's a world-class education. That's what we're committed to at Hanover College. Nothing Less.