Claremont McKenna College

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Academics

While many other colleges champion either a traditional liberal arts education with emphasis on intellectual breadth, or training that stresses acquisition of technical skills, Claremont McKenna College offers a clear alternative. Instead of dividing the liberal arts and the working world into separate realms, education at Claremont McKenna is rooted in the interplay between the world of ideas and the world of events. By combining the intellectual breadth of the liberal arts with the more pragmatic concerns of public affairs, CMC helps students to gain the vision, skills, and values necessary for leadership in all sectors of society.

In addition to its dedication to teaching and learning, the College is a center for scholars who are engaged in research that can enlighten a society intent on finding solutions to its economic, political, social, and environmental problems. Ongoing research at CMC is contributing to the body of knowledge in areas such as the effects of government regulations upon the economy, toxic waste, juvenile justice, changes of enzyme systems in humans, and the ecology of desert regions.

The Research Institutes are perhaps our clearest example of the linkages forged at CMC between research, teaching and learning. Here, students serve as assistants to, and collaborators with, their teachers, co-authoring scholarly articles and presenting papers to academic bodies, corporations, political organizations and government agencies. They test theories in the public marketplace and actively seek answers to questions of broad social importance.

In September 2007, the economics department became the Robert Day School of Economics and Finance. Beginning in fall 2009, a one-year Master's Program in Finance will be offered.

In recent years CMC has gained national recognition as one of the top liberal arts colleges in America. This recognition can be attributed, in part, to CMC's mission which acknowledges its obligation for service to the larger scholarly community through faculty contact with business and with government, a process that enriches both the outside world and the campus itself. Also contributing to CMC's national reputation are the accomplishments of its almost 8,000 alumni. Today, about seventy percent of CMC's graduates go on to advanced degrees at prestigious institutions, and one in eight graduates holds a position in top management.