Integral to the WPI Plan, the university’s signature approach to undergraduate education, the Humanities & Arts plays a considerable role in each student’s journey here.
The aim is to educate well-rounded, globally aware graduates with exceptional analytical skills and sensitivity to culture and context. The way is to offer a major, minors, concentrations, courses, and a required immersive experience. The result is that all WPI undergraduates get a chance to embrace their inner musician, thespian, poet, artist, linguist, or philosopher.
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A recent production from Masque, WPI's main theatre group, combined over 20 excerpts of plays with LGBTQ+ themes that were performed at past New Voices festivals into The Showcase, which celebrated the inclusivity of WPI's campus. According to co-dramaturg Katelyne Sibley, the play is "trying to normalize being different instead of thinking about normal as meaning everyone is the same.”
New Voices is the nation’s longest continuously running collegiate new and original play festival. Since 1982 the festival has featured performances of original, unpublished scripts from the WPI community. In 2006, New Voices became established in the Little Theatre, the university’s first dedicated theatrical space—an intimate 99-seat black-box-style facility.
All WPI students complete the Humanities & Arts requirement. The goal is for every student to graduate with a broader perspective than that provided solely by the study of science and technology. Students will be exposed to art, theatre, music, and other forms of creative expression by completing six courses—including a seminar or practicum requirement—of their choice.
Born in Michigan in 1956, I graduated from the University of Michigan in 1978, earning my PhD at Stanford University in 1985. I have enjoyed teaching British literature at WPI since 1990. I like the intelligence and good work ethic of WPI students; I especially enjoy the opportunity to meet and interact with students in small groups and on an individual basis. The bulk of my scholarly work falls into three principal areas.
One of Professor Cullon's students recently called him "strangely fascinating." He knew that he was strange but he was happy to learn that a student founding his approach to teaching fascinating. He likes to encourage students to see history not as a mass of dead facts but as a vital mode of inquiry and a moral project that has the potential to inform the present as much as illuminate the past.
Ruth Smith works in the Philosophy and Religion group in the Humanities and Arts Department at WPI, and is also affiliated with Rhetoric and Writing programs. Interests in linguistics have shaped her attention to moral theories and practices as questions of grammar, taken as how we make ways around in the stream of life, yes, fragments of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Simone Weil.
Susan Vick, professor of Drama/Theatre and director of theatre, directs the academic theatre programs at WPI, including artistic leadership of major productions and projects performed in the Little Theatre. Vick works as the executive dramaturg and founder for New Voices, an annual festival of original plays now in its 35th year and the longest-running collegiate new play festival. A published and produced playwright, she has also worked as a professional actress and director and holds memberships in the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society and the Dramatists Guild.
The skills that students acquire in the Humanities & Arts (HUA) program provide them with a distinct advantage in their chosen fields, which range from careers in environmental studies and public health to writing and performing. For more information on how students put their talents to use after graduation, see the career outlook for HUA graduates.
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Considered one of the world’s foremost academic authorities on Jimi Hendrix, humanities professor Joel Brattin was featured in this Telegram & Gazette article. “All told, Brattin finds the album to be something of a treasure trove and a good reminder as to why Hendrix’s work is still so popular and influential today,” the T&G stated.
Scott Barton, assistant professor of humanities and arts and an expert on how sound is perceived, was interviewed for an article about the Windsor Hum, a “persistent noise of unknown origin, sometimes compared to a truck idling or distant thunder,” that has been affecting residents of Windsor, Ontario, for years.
