The Sarah Lawrence College Philosophy

We believe an educated person is one who combines skepticism with reverence, who questions everything but the dignity and worth of others, and who recognizes an obligation to serve the larger community.

We believe the most profound learning takes place when the process of education is linked to the experiences, interests, and capacities of the individual student. By investing their own human and intellectual resources in the process of education, students more effectively commit themselves to academic study. We foster that active involvement by focusing on each student and that student’s unique interests and potential.

To help each student attain a fully autonomous and meaningful relationship to knowledge, our pedagogy is based on small discussion seminars, individual conferences, and direct faculty advisement. When students take intellectual and creative risks, they become aware of the particular strengths and weaknesses of their own processes of learning, communication, and expression. We encourage students to:

• Explore intellectual issues within a framework of humanistic values
• Blend intellectual rigor with passionate human concern
• Derive pleasure from disciplined study
• Approach learning with a sense of meaning and urgency
• Transcend any intellectual and creative limitations

Close faculty-student contact is required to realize our educational goals. The low student-to-faculty ratio of 9-to-1 makes the intensity of this teaching possible. The result is more direct faculty participation and involvement with students in the educational process than at any other major undergraduate college in the country.