At the heart of IU Northwest is the College of Arts and Sciences.  We provide undergraduate and graduate education in a broad range of arts and sciences disciplines that prepare students for rewarding careers of their choice.  We also provide the academic coursework that are the foundation for success in majors across the university.  The college is dedicated to helping our students develop the communication, reasoning, and analytic skills necessary to succeed in a rapidly changing world.  The skills and content offered in the college are the core of what it means to be educated in the 21st Century.  We invite all of our students to delve into the vast offerings of the College with the expectation that expanding your knowledge of the liberal arts and sciences will lead to better lives and more successful and fulfilling careers.  

At the core of our programs, many unique to the region, are the analytical, cognitive, and expressive skills needed to assimilate and advance knowledge. An arts and sciences education focuses on an understanding of the human condition—past and present—and the world in which we live. It emphasizes a humanistic and aesthetic appreciation of cultural life as well as valuing of science and its methodology in which intellect, logical processes, ethical perspectives, and problem solving are vital. The strong research and creative activities of our faculty encourage students toward a life of learning and reflection.

Intrinsic to a liberal education is preparing graduates to appreciate, contribute to, and thrive in a diverse, culturally rich, technologically, and scientifically advanced society with a compelling history, a promising future, and a capacity for transformation. Through our teaching, research, creative arts, and professional and community services, we engage in the vitality of Northwest Indiana. An informed, educated population is not only democracy's strongest, best hope, it is also society's wisest investment. That, more than anything else, is the endeavor of the faculty and staff of the College of Arts and Sciences.

At present, the college consists of 14 departments offering baccalaureate degrees in the following areas: actuarial science, Afro-American studies, anthropology, biology, chemistry, computer information systems, economics, English, fine arts, French, geology, history, mathematics, communication, philosophy, political science, psychology, sociology, Spanish, and theatre. Courses are offered in all those fields plus astronomy, Canadian studies, comparative literature, computer science, geography, German, journalism, Latino studies, linguistics, music, physics, religious studies, telecommunications, and Women's and Gender Studies.

The College offers interdepartmental majors that lead to baccalaureate degrees in Graphic Design, Environmental Science, Afro-American Studies and Communication, Afro-American Studies and English, and Computer Information Systems and Mathematics as well.  

In addition to undergraduate education leading to the bachelor's degree, which prepares students for citizenship as well as for professional training and graduate study, the programs of the College of Arts and Sciences provide students in the College of Health and Human Services, the School of Business and Economics and the School of Education with courses that are a foundation for those professional programs.