Departments, Schools, and Programs

Department of Anthropology

Anthropology is the study of human diversity and addresses fundamental questions about human origins and human nature. Subfields include physical, cultural, and evolutionary anthropology; linguistics; and archaeology.

Department of Art

The fine arts are vital to cultural expression: they enrich our lives while challenging and broadening our views of the world. WSU faculty foster an educational environment that encourages creativity, individual growth, and meaningful expression. Students have the opportunity to put their ideas into form while becoming visually literate, historically grounded, and familiar with the diversity of arts and cultures worldwide.

School of Biological Sciences

Biology is the science of life, and encompasses molecular, cellular, and physiological processes, evolutionary diversity, ecological relationships, and global systems. Biologists study life from prehistoric times to organisms alive today and model how life may change in the future. In addition to specializations in botany, entomology, and ecology, WSU offers a degree in zoology (the biology of animals).

Department of Chemistry

Chemistry studies the molecular nature and characteristics of substances and the changes they undergo. It is a fundamental discipline and interconnected to many other scientific disciplines and technologies.

Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology

Together, criminal justice and criminology examine the causes and patterns of criminal behavior, the institutions and individuals that work within the criminal justice system, and the role law plays in the prevention and responses to crime.

Data Analytics Program

Data analytics is the application of data science to a particular domain. The curriculum develops strong technical and communication skills, builds experience work in teams, and provides working knowledge in a range of disciplines. including actuarial science, environmental studies, business, life sciences, and more.

Department of Digital Technology and Culture

DTC is an interdisciplinary degree program that combines the creative production and critical exploration of digital media. Studies emphasize a historical, rhetorical, and cultural understanding of digital media and prepare students for solving communications needs locally, nationally, and globally.

Department of English

Scholars study the English language in many forms, including literature, technology, and its cultural function. Students develop skills in critical reading and analysis, and gain experience in creative, professional, and analytical writing across a range of contexts, including print and electronic media.

School of the Environment

Focusing on the study of the Earth, the environment, natural resources, wildlife ecology, and the role of humans in modifying Earth and environmental systems, this interdisciplinary unit increases team-based research and scholarly output while providing cutting-edge training for the next generation of scientists, resource managers, policy makers, and well-informed global citizens.

General Studies Program

Students can design a multidisciplinary degree in the natural or physical sciences that reflects their own individual values, interests, and abilities and contributes to achieving lifelong personal, educational, and professional goals.

Department of History

History is the ongoing effort to understand diverse people, institutions, and cultures. Historical inquiry builds knowledge of past events and in doing so helps inform the decisions we make about our future. Faculty specialize in many areas of research and teaching, including environmental, world, American west, religion, gender, military, and diplomatic history.

School of Languages, Cultures, and Race

The school leads students in the study of languages as well as the institutional forces and dynamics articulating race, culture, and nation, preparing students for the challenges of a diverse society and world. The Language for Professionals second major options provides mastery of foreign language as an important tool in a broad variety of careers and professions.

Department of Mathematics and Statistics

Mathematics is the foundation of physical and social sciences and an essential tool for scientific research and discovery. Industries and researchers alike rely on advanced statistical analysis and computational modeling to understand massive data sets created by modern technology. Mathematics itself has also been a special art throughout the development of human civilizations.

School of Music

Music is art in sound, universally beloved, and an essential part of every culture on Earth. People around the world use music to communicate, commemorate, worship, celebrate, and share their deepest emotions, to express what words cannot.

Department of Physics and Astronomy

Physics is the study of the natural world, from its smallest and most fundamental elements to its most extreme environments. Astronomy is the study of the universe from the scale of planets to the ultimate scale of all that is known. Students and researchers study matter, energy, and space and time while learning the laws and forces of nature and searching for symmetries, patterns, and properties that define the workings of the universe.

School of Politics, Philosophy, and Public Affairs

Faculty conduct problem-driven research that confronts both traditional and emerging challenges in American politics and law, American foreign policy and global politics, political theory and psychology, and other areas serving the public interest. Political science focuses on the uses and consequences of public authority in the allocation of societal resources. Philosophy faculty specialize in bioethics, ethical theory and applied ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language and science, and the philosophy of religion.

Department of Psychology

Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and the mental processes that determine behavior, and applies the accumulated knowledge of this science to practical problems. Degree programs provide students with foundational knowledge and training opportunities in both the experimental and applied psychology across a range of specialties such as physiology, cognition, social, developmental, statistical analysis, and scientific methodology.

Department of Sociology

Sociology looks at society from every angle—it is the social science that aims to answer questions about why and how we group together to form societies, as well as the individual’s roles within society. The fundamental insight of the discipline is that the social matters: our lives are affected by our personal psychology and by our place in the social world. Sociologists study a range of issues, from inequality to human ecology, from deviance to religion, from medicine to politics.

Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program

An interdisciplinary degree program that places gender and sexuality at the center of analysis, preparing students for careers in a diverse world and for developing strategies in social and institutional change. Inquiry focuses on historical and contemporary struggles for justice and the critique of structural inequalities within which categories of difference—including gender, sexuality, race, class, age, nationality, and ability—intersect.