Welcome to Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences
Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences shares its beginnings with the whole of East Carolina University. Liberal arts subjects formed the core of the offerings of East Carolina Teachers Training School when it opened its doors to the first students back in 1909, and liberal arts subjects in Harriot College today continue this central mission of preparing students for leadership andlifelonglearning.
As East Carolina University’s most heterogeneous academic unit, Harriot College is home to fifteen academic disciplines and an expanding list of interdisciplinary programs developed to meet the broadest of student needs and interests.
Liberal arts? These words are the English translation of the Latin artes liberales, literally the arts befitting free persons as opposed to artes serviles (activities befitting servile, menial, or intellectually “enslaved” persons).
These liberating arts enlarge intellectual horizons and create a multiplicity of understandings through the teaching of critical reading, thinking, discovery, and writing. In our increasingly interconnected "globalized" world, the liberal arts student is uniquely equipped to reach out to and learn from the whole varied range of human intellectual and physical environments.
The man for whom the College is named, English Renaissance polymath Thomas Harriot, presents the quintessential model of liberal education.
Under the leadership of Dr. Alan White, seventh dean, Harriot College celebrates its past and embraces its liberating and ever-widening future.
