Goals

To encourage a sensitivity to the past in order that its students might better understand the present and prepare intelligently to deal with the challenges of the future.
To train and instruct its students in historical method, enabling them to seek out sources, evaluate evidence, and reach sound conclusions regarding specific historical events and questions. A most important part of this element is emphasis on doing the work of history with the greatest possible objectivity, resisting personal and social prejudice and ideological fashion.
To enhance the ability of its students to read, retain, and write about complex historical materials; to master and to analyze that material by identifying and posing essential questions; to draw meaningful conclusions about that material and those questions.
To develop in its students a basic grasp of both European and American civilization.
To provide its students with opportunities to gain knowledge and understanding of non-Western civilizations.
To provide its students with an understanding and appreciation of the Judeo-Christian heritage in keeping with the character and mission of the college as a Roman Catholic and Dominican institution.
To develop in its students a knowledge and understanding of democratic tradition and practice and their relation to the responsibilities of citizenship and humane development of the nation and the world.

History and Classics Department

Office Hours: 8:30 am to 4:00 pm
Ruane Center for the Humanities Room 137
401-865-2193
History2@providence.edu