UMass Amherst

Commonwealth College

Mission

We are here to enhance undergraduate education for Commonwealth College students using the resources of a large, public research university and to offer students an academic community that promotes engagement with society, with leading scholars, and with their peers.

Academic Philosophy

The ecology of the university depends on a deep and abiding understanding that inquiry, investigation, and discovery are the heart of the enterprise, whether in funded research projects or in undergraduate classrooms or graduate apprenticeships. Everyone at a university should be a discoverer, a learner. That shared mission binds together all that happens on a campus. The teaching responsibility of the university is to make all its students participants in the mission. Those students must undergird their engagement in research with the strong “general” education that creates a unity with their peers, their professors, and the rest of society. (The Boyer Commission on Educating Undergraduates in the Research University, Reinventing Undergraduate Education: A Blueprint for America’s Research Universities, 1998, 9)

Commonwealth College works to provide its students a foundation for successful lifelong learning. The curriculum emphasizes inquiry and critical analysis, independent research, collaborative work, engagement with society, and effective communication skills. The College strives to nurture its students’ love of learning and to develop their ability to critically assess problems. The College encourages discovery, creativity, initiative, responsibility, collaboration, leadership, and independent thought. These are the attributes that enhance opportunities for individuals, organizations, and society as a whole.

In step with the land grant mission of the University, Commonwealth College promotes meaningful engagement with society. The College works with the University and surrounding community to afford its students academically based opportunities such as internships, co-ops, experiential learning courses, leadership training, and community service learning courses (courses that integrate work in the classroom with active outreach to the community in order to meet community needs). The college also promotes student leadership through specific leadership courses, through its speaker series and alumni mentoring/shadowing programs, and by encouraging student participation in college activities such as peer mentoring, committee work, and events planning.