2012-2013 Pitzer Catalog 
    
    Mar 19, 2024  
2012-2013 Pitzer Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

2012-2013 Pitzer Catalog


Welcome to the Pitzer College Online Catalog

Founded in 1963, Pitzer College is a coeducational liberal arts and sciences college offering a Bachelor of Arts degree. Social and behavioral science, the arts, humanities, natural sciences and interdisciplinary studies are very strong at the College. Enrolling approximately 1,000 men and women, Pitzer College is part of the unique educational environment known as The Claremont Colleges-a consortium of five undergraduate colleges and two graduate institutions. All seven campuses are physically contiguous and share such facilities as a central library, bookstore and medical center. Numerous joint programs are available in the sciences, in music, in theatre and in interdisciplinary studies.

Within Claremont, Pitzer’s educational philosophy is singular. Pitzer strives to enhance individual growth while at the same time building community. Students create their own academic programs in close collaboration with their faculty advisers. There are no lists of requirements to be checked off; rather, students choose their courses with a unique set of Educational Objectives. One of these objectives encourages students to become involved in some kind of community service-learning activity. In addition, students are encouraged to participate in the governance of the College. Working with the faculty and staff, they have the opportunity to build the community in which they reside by serving on standing committees and becoming voting members of College Council, the College’s decision-making body.

Pitzer celebrates cultural diversity and intercultural understanding. Students of ethnically diverse backgrounds come from all parts of the United States as well as from nearly twenty other countries. In addition to learning from one another, students are encouraged to participate in one of Pitzer’s Study Abroad programs in Botswana, China, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Italy, Nepal or Japan. Other study abroad programs are also available. One of Pitzer’s Educational Objectives challenges students to develop a set of courses that will examine an issue from the perspectives of at least two cultures and two disciplines. Intercultural and interdisciplinary learning are highly valued at Pitzer. Students are encouraged to take advantage of these programs as well as many other resources available in Claremont, to become proficient in a foreign language and thus enrich and strengthen their appreciation of global diversity.

Pitzer College is located in the City of Claremont, a Southern California community of some 35,000 residents, noted for its tree-lined streets and numerous parks. Situated at the southern base of the San Gabriel Mountains-with Mt. Baldy, a 10,000-foot mountain peak rising above it-Claremont is approximately an hour’s drive to downtown Los Angeles, the Pacific Coast beaches, the desert highlands and snow-capped mountain ranges.