We are delighted to announce that the College of Arts and Letters (CAL) will be renamed the Stevens School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (HASS), effective July 1, 2023. This new name more accurately captures the breadth of research and learning taking place among the school’s faculty and students while representing its current role as Stevens’ hub for technology-driven programs in music, the visual arts, the social sciences and the humanities. HASS (pronounced “hoss”) better reflects the school’s stature as one of four co-equal units of Stevens Institute of Technology’s academic enterprise and clarifies its mission, educational offerings and areas of inquiry for potential students and academic peers.
This name was selected after a comprehensive effort initiated at the end of the 2021-2022 academic year to reimagine the school’s identity and branding. It is an outgrowth of the process that yielded successful changes to the university’s brand identity last year, including the guiding principle Inspired by Humanity, Powered by Technology™.
The Board of Trustees approved the new name on March 23, 2023. Many faculty members, staff, students, alumni and administrative leaders participated in the process of re-examining the school’s identity and selecting a name. The participation of these community members helped ensure an inclusive selection process and a broad foundation of support.
The humanities have been a vital element of a Stevens education since the university’s founding in 1870. Over the decades, arts, humanities and social sciences programs at Stevens grew and evolved, culminating in the establishment of CAL in 2007. CAL has flourished in recent years under the leadership of Dean Kelland Thomas; in eight years, enrollment has risen 120 percent, and the school has become a cultural hub for the Stevens community. Members of the school’s faculty regularly receive recognition across academia and in top-tier media, and the successes of CAL students and faculty have helped bolster the university’s reputation.
We strongly believe that as HASS, the school will continue its remarkable progress. The new name retires the antiquated term “arts and letters” and aligns with the nomenclature used by our peer institutions to identify their humanities units. The name HASS serves our current students and alumni by defining the school as a place that melds advanced technological thinking with the leading edge of the arts, humanities and social sciences, and it makes the school’s mission instantly understandable to students, parents and prospective faculty members.
We offer our thanks to all those who participated in the process that led to this renaming and invite you to watch a video featuring Dean Thomas, linked below, which further illustrates this exciting change.
The contributions of this school significantly enhance the university and the world. We look forward to continued growth and success from HASS as we embrace this new name and begin an exciting chapter for the humanities, arts and social sciences at Stevens.