TABLE OF CONTENTS
Roanoke College
Statement of Purpose; Freedom With Purpose; Goals for Liberal Learning; History; Accreditation and Affiliations; College Environment; Religion and College Life; Faculty
Admissions
Freshman Students; Freshman Application Procedure; Transfer Students; International Students; Students with Disabilities; Internal Grievance Procedure For Disabled Students; Special Students; Adult Students
Financial Aid
Financial Aid Regulations and Programs; Types of Financial Aid; Scholarship Competition Program; Student Loan Fund
Student Services
Residence Life & Housing; Dean of Students Office; Student Activities; Student Government; Student Media; Art, Art History, Music and Theatre; Athletics; Recreation and Club Sports; Intramurals; Student Health & Counseling Services; Campus Safety; Dining Services; Social Fraternities and Sororities; Student Conduct System; Conduct Policies and Regulations
Finances
College Charges; Tuition for Part-Time Students; Tuition for Graduates and Senior Citizens; Tuition for Intensive Learning Term; Domestic/On Campus; Housing Fees; Non-Travel Courses; Foreign Travel Courses; Miscellaneous Expenses; Method of Payment; Withdrawals and Refunds; Special Note
Academic Honors and Awards
Semester Honors; Junior and Senior Scholars; Degrees with Distinction; Honors in Majors; Valedictorian and Salutatorian; Honor Societies; Prizes and Awards
Academic Services
Goode-Pasfield Center for Learning & Teaching; Freshman and Undeclared Student Advising; Entering Freshman and Transfer Student Pre-registration; The Writing Center @ Roanoke College; Subject Tutoring Program; Disability Support Services; Subject Tutoring; RC Success; Office of Career Services; Educational Centers; Information Technology; Libraries
Academic Regulations and Procedures
Advising; Registration; Auditing Courses; Course Load/Overload; Academic Integrity; Class Attendance; Course Changes; Examination Rescheduling; Re-Examination; Academic Credit and Classification of Students; Competency Standards; Advanced Placement and Credit; Credit by Examination; Transfer Credit; Units and Credit for Courses; Classification; System of Grading; Academic Standards
Programs of Study
Majors, Minors, and Concentrations; Requirements for Baccalaureate Degree Programs; Records, Transcripts and Diplomas
Academic Programs and Opportunities
Intellectual Inquiry Curriculum; Intellectual Inquiry Perspectives Courses; Teacher Licensure; Honors Program; Internships, Independent Studies, and Independent Research; Summer Scholars Program; Semester in Washington, D.C.; Study Abroad Opportunities; Preparation for Graduate Work; Dual Degree Engineering Program
Courses of Instruction
African and African Diaspora Studies; American Politics, Anthropology; Applied Computer Science; Art; Art History; Athletic Training; Biochemistry; Biology; Business Administration; Chemistry; Chinese; Christian Studies; Classics and The Ancient Mediterranean World; Communication Studies; Computer Science; Creative Writing; Criminal Justice; East Asian Studies; Economics; Education; English; Environmental Studies; Foreign Politics; French; Gender & Women’s Studies; Geography; German; Greek; Health and Human Performance; Health and Exercise Science; Health and Physical Education; Health Care; History; Honors; Intellectual Inquiry; Intensive Learning; International Relations; Japanese; Language; Latin; Latin American and Caribbean Studies; Legal Studies; Linguistics; Literary Studies; Mathematics; Modern Languages; Music; Neuroscience; Parish Youth Leadership; Peace and Justice Studies; Philosophy; Physics; Political Science; Psychology; Religious Studies; Russian; Sociology; Spanish; Sport Management; Statistics; Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages; Theatre Arts; Theology; Writing
Board of Trustees
Officers; Trustees; Trustees Emeriti; President Emeritus
Faculty
Professors; Associate Professors; Assistant Professors; Teaching Associates; Special Appointment Faculty; Retired Members
Administration
Academic Affairs; Admissions; Business Affairs; Department Chairs; Financial Aid, and Enrollment Management; Information Technology; Religious Affairs; Resource Development and Public Relations; Student Affairs
Correspondence Directory
ACADEMIC CATALOG 2016-2017
From the Dean
This catalog is an educational guidebook for our students at Roanoke College, as well as a source of information for prospective students and others interested in the College. It describes the requirements for all academic programs and for graduation. It provides information about financial aid and scholarships. It sets forth regulations and faculty policies that govern academic life and acquaints students with the Roanoke College faculty and staff.
I encourage every student to become familiar with the contents of the Catalog. If any portion of it needs further explanation, faculty advisors and staff members in the Office of the Registrar and the Center for Learning and Teaching stand ready to answer any questions. Although there are advisors to assist, ultimately, it is the responsibility of the student to register correctly, to complete the necessary course work for graduation and to abide by the academic regulations of the College, as set forth by the faculty.
Dr. Richard A. Smith
Vice President and Dean of the College
Catalog Policy
The contents of this catalog represent the most current information available at the time of publication. During the period of time covered by this catalog, it is reasonable to expect changes to be made without prior notice. Thus, the provisions of this catalog are not to be regarded as an irrevocable contract between the College and the student. The Academic Catalog is produced by the Registrar’s Office in cooperation with various other offices on campus. The educational process requires continual review, and the College reserves the right to make appropriate changes in its courses, programs, grading system, standards of progress and retention, honors, awards, and fees. In general, students are to be governed by the Catalog that is current at the time they begin their studies at Roanoke College. However, a student has the option of declaring to be under the jurisdiction of a subsequent catalog except in cases where core requirements have been changed and the College has stipulated those eligible to declare the new curriculum. Should the faculty determine that a modification in course work for the major or teacher licensure program in education is necessary in order for students to complete a current course of study, the department reserves the right to modify degree or licensure requirements for students who have not yet formally declared a major or applied for teacher licensure.
Students transferring from a Virginia community college may elect to declare any Catalog in effect within the twenty-four month period immediately preceding the term they first enrolled except in cases where core requirements have been changed and the College has stipulated who is eligible to declare the modified curriculum.
Affiliation: The College maintains its partnership in church-related education with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America through the Virginia Synod, The Metropolitan Washington, DC Synod, and the West Virginia-Western Maryland Synod.
Statement of nondiscrimination: Roanoke College does not discriminate against students, employees, or applicants on the basis of race, color, gender, creed, religion, age, sexual orientation, marital status, national or ethnic origin, disability, or veteran status.
ROANOKE COLLEGE
Statement of Purpose
Vision
Roanoke College is committed to being a leading national liberal arts college, a model of experiential learning and a community committed to open discourse and civil debate as ways of learning and as preparation for service in the world.
Mission
Roanoke College develops students as whole persons and prepares them for responsible lives of learning, service, and leadership by promoting their intellectual, ethical, spiritual and personal growth.
Purpose
Roanoke College pursues its mission through an innovative curriculum that combines a core program in the liberal arts, major fields of study in the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities and fine arts, along with career-oriented, specialized programs of study. Founded by Lutherans in 1842, Roanoke College welcomes and reflects a variety of religious traditions. The College honors its Christian heritage and its partnership with the Lutheran church by nurturing a dialogue between faith and reason. In keeping with its history and mission, the College strives to be a diverse community, nationally and internationally.
Central to achieving the purposes of the College is a strong commitment to liberal education and its vision of human freedom leading to service within the human community. The College’s learning goals, therefore, focus upon developing both a student’s confident sense of freedom in the world and a sense of purpose in using that freedom. Through these goals the College strives to produce resourceful, informed, and responsible citizens prepared for productive careers and for leadership in the community.
Freedom With Purpose:
A Liberal Arts Education at Roanoke College
Philosophy
Education in the Liberal Arts is education for liberation. The term “liberal arts” derives from the Latin artes liberales and means, literally, the subjects of study appropriate to free persons. And the verb “to educate” means, in its Latin root, “to lead.” A liberal arts education, then, is one that leads out from small worlds into larger ones.
It leads us out from small, safe worlds into larger, more interesting ones by training in us dissatisfaction with partial knowledge, with sloganeering, and with fixed ideologies. It instills in us instead an appreciation for the true complexity of things and a lifelong commitment to learning. A mind so trained respects facts, employs apt methods, and engages in creative problem solving. It examines alternatives; it does not fear tension or paradox. It welcomes the stubborn “misfit” fact that cracks open a too-small view and releases us into a wider play of thought. And it encounters this liberating openness in the vision of artists; in the venturesome thought of philosophers, theologians, and mathematicians; in the observation and experimentation of scientists; in the insights of social scientists; and in the experience of living in community.
A liberal arts education at a small, residential college frees us from isolation within ourselves into a community of learners and sharers, a community of discovery and collaboration, in which we can grow as individuals in constructive engagement with others.
A liberal arts education frees us from reliance upon received opinion into an achieved personal authority by training the skills of critical thought, sound research, and informed and reasoned debate. At Roanoke College this freedom grows out of a tradition of debating societies within a community of open discourse.
A liberal arts education frees us from entrapment within the conventions of our present place and time into a wider perspective that comprehends our own legacies, the breadth of human history, and the variety of human cultures. To support this work, Roanoke College commits itself to the work of building a diverse and tolerant college community.
A liberal arts education frees us from superficiality and distraction into the satisfactions of knowledge in depth, in which depth of learning leads to useful understanding—and to pleasure, wonder, and awe. At the same time, a liberal education frees us from mere specialization into a wider dialogue, in which depth of knowledge is shared and debated to clarify distinctions, to discover patterns, and to integrate human knowledge into an ever larger and more adequate view.
A liberal arts education engages ethics and questions of ultimate meaning. It does not offer pat moral answers. Instead, it provides the basis of all moral behavior—it helps us to imagine the reality of other lives. In matters of ethical living, it does not limit itself to the human, social world, but includes thoughtful consideration of our place within the natural world. At Roanoke College these inquiries are informed, in part, by a tradition of Lutheran education that encourages a dialogue between faith and learning.
Education in the liberal arts frees us from purposelessness into productive careers and lives of service, in which our work to discover what is good, true, and beautiful leads on to work for good in the world.
The effects of a liberal arts education—an education for liberation—are a love of learning, an openness within the vastness of what we do not know, and a desire to use what we do know in ethical living, engaged citizenship, and service for the general good. The broad aim of such an education, therefore, is to produce resourceful, informed, and responsible citizens.
Principles
At Roanoke College a liberal arts education prepares students for lives of freedom with purpose. The college aims to produce resourceful, informed, and responsible citizens prepared for productive careers and for leadership in community, with an understanding of community appropriate to American diversity and to the increasingly global experience of the 21st century.
Traditionally, the liberal arts are the skills of freedom. A liberal arts education at Roanoke College aims to produce resourceful citizens by developing these skills and habits of mind, including:
• the ability to read, listen, and observe carefully
• the ability to access information from disparate sources, to assess it appropriately, and to develop information into useful knowledge
• the ability to think critically, analytically, and creatively; to apply apt methods; to reason with rigor; and to use effective problem-solving skills
• the ability to use writing as a tool of thought and to communicate effectively in a variety of written and oral forms
• the ability to construct, understand, and evaluate arguments that use quantitative reasoning
• the ability to understand scientific discovery and to appraise it wisely
• the ability to make judicious use of new technologies
• the ability to work independently and collaboratively and to participate in experiential learning
Knowledge is essential to freedom. A liberal arts education at Roanoke College aims to produce citizens informed by:
• the cardinal achievements of human imagination as expressed in the arts and humanities, in the sciences, and in the social sciences
• depth of knowledge in at least one academic field of study, complemented by a breadth of experience across the traditional divisions of knowledge sufficient to enable integrative learning and thinking
• knowledge of the histories, values, and achievements of both western and non-western cultures in depth sufficient for the appreciation of disparate values and perspectives; this knowledge includes the cultural insight gained through language study
• knowledge of the values and histories that gave rise to liberal democracy in the United States and an understanding of contemporary issues from a variety of perspectives
Freedom, according to Martin Luther, includes both “freedom from” varieties of oppression and “freedom for” service in community. A liberal arts education at Roanoke College aims to produce responsible citizens by cultivating in its students:
• a commitment to academic integrity and intellectual freedom
• a lifelong commitment to learning and to using that learning in active engagement with others
• a sense of responsibility in which individual identity is honored within a diverse community characterized by mutual understanding and respect
• a commitment to engage in contemplation and reflection as a prelude to action, to make principled and ethical decisions, and to participate in deliberative public discourse
• a commitment to health in its largest sense: the physical and emotional well-being of self within a community that balances intellectual, ethical, spiritual, and personal growth