School of Humanities and Sciences

The School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University grants the majority of the university's degrees and contains 27 departments along with 20 interdisciplinary degree-granting programs. It was officially formed in 1948 through the merger of the earlier Schools of Biological Sciences, Humanities, Physical Sciences, and Social Sciences, which themselves dated back to the mid-1920s when Stanford first organized its departments into schools. The school is organized into three divisions: Humanities and Arts, Natural Sciences, and Social Sciences, encompassing fields such as Art & Art History, Classics, English, History, Philosophy, Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics, Physics, Anthropology, Economics, Political Science, Psychology, and Sociology, among others. Over the decades, Stanford has required undergraduates to complete various core courses in the humanities, including Western Civilization, Western Culture, Cultures, Ideas and Values, Introduction to the Humanities, Thinking Matters, and the current Ways of Thinking/Ways of Doing program. The school has been led by a series of deans since its founding, beginning with Clarence H. Faust (1948–1951) and continuing to the current dean, Debra Satz, who assumed the role in 2018. Notable faculty associated with the school include psychologists Albert Bandura, Carol Dweck, and Phillip Zimbardo, as well as linguist Joseph Greenberg.