Bringing Representation to Oregon's K-12 Classrooms
Some of the University of Oregon's most accomplished football players have had Hawaiian ancestry, including Marcus Mariota, Dillon Gabriel and Penei Sewell. But inside Oregon's K-12 classrooms, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Island history and culture isn't a part of the curriculum.
Lana Lopesi is working with Oregon State University research Patricia Fifita to change that. Lopesi is an assistant professor in the Department of Indigenous, Race, and Ethnic Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences, and she hopes this work will increase the visibility and representation of Pacific Islander and Native Hawaiians in the Oregon public school system.
“Pacific students feel really alienated and would really love it if there was more curriculum that was geared towards their identities,” Lopesi said.
Explore the 2024-25 Annual Research Report to read more about CAS research and how it's making a positive impact at home and beyond.
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We Love Our Supporters
Gifts to the College of Arts and Sciences can help our students make the most of their college careers. To do this, CAS needs your support. Your contributions help us ensure that teaching, research, advising, mentoring, and support services are fully available to every student. Thank you!
What’s Happening in CAS?
Researchers in the College of Arts and Sciences secured $83 million in sponsored grants to fund 199 research projects across the three divisions: Humanities, Natural Sciences, and Social Sciences. This year’s annual report provides a glimpse into the curious minds of researchers and their work.
Also in the November issue of CAS Connection: a physics professor takes the helm of the world's largest particle accelerator, a cinema studies student shares her experience interning for a Portland-based casting company, a data science professor works to make AI be more accurate—and more.
Undergraduate Studies
Wherever your academic goals eventually take you at the UO, all Ducks begin their journey with foundational courses in CAS. More than 60 percent of students go on to pursue a major in a CAS department or program. With more than 50 departments and programs, there’s an intellectual home for almost any interest, talent, or career aspiration.
Graduate Studies
The College of Arts and Sciences offers more than 30 master's programs and more than 20 doctoral programs across a diverse range of disciplines. Both as contributors to research teams and through their own scholarship and teaching, our CAS graduate students are indispensable to the vitality of the UO academic mission.
Student Support Services
We provide our students with a variety of resources to help you thrive inside and outside the classroom. Through Tykeson Advising, we provide comprehensive academic and career advising from the start of your journey at the University of Oregon. Learn about career preparation and get assistance in selecting the very best classes. Connect with labs, libraries, IT and tutoring. Find your community on campus.
World-Class Faculty
The College of Arts and Sciences faculty members are a driving force of the high-output, high-impact research activity that has earned the UO membership in the prestigious Association of American Universities (AAU). Our world-class faculty members are inspiring teachers.
Among them are five members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, four members of the National Academy of Sciences. They are committed to helping students discover their academic passion. Every day, they work to expand students’ intellectual horizons, preparing them for life after college with real-world knowledge and skills.
Meet our Dean
In the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS), we are committed to excellence in research and teaching, student success, and diversity, equity, and belonging.
A liberal arts education—one that offers a breadth of intellectual approaches and perspectives and depth in a major discipline—is the foundation to a purposeful life as a life-long learner, engaged citizen, and leader. The skills you will learn here—from written and verbal communication to analytical and quantitative reasoning, to compassion and understanding—are those that employers seek and will open the door to a wealth of opportunities.
You will find more than 50 majors and a multitude of minors within CAS, and seemingly endless opportunities for personal exploration and discovery. Whether you are an incoming first-year student, a grad student or a transfer student, you can map an exciting future and be part of a fun, warm, engaged liberal arts community here. Come join us. And go Ducks!
The College of Arts and Sciences includes:
Happening at CAS
3:30–4:30 p.m.
Northwest Native American Language Resource Center.
Role of a steering committee, strategies for recruiting, and how to sustain meaningful engagement.
Participation is on a first come, first served basis. We are capped at 50 participants per workshop.
Register at: https://forms.office.com/r/NjGWyE6sxe
5:30–7:00 p.m.
Black Arms to Hold You Up
Ben Passmore, critically acclaimed, Eisner-nominated and Ignatz Award-winning cartoonist discusses his book, Black Arms to Hold You Up: A History of Black Resistance (Pantheon, 2025). Passmore’s work continues the tradition of Ollie Harrington’s critical cartooning and speaks to the ongoing use of comics as a form of truth-telling against white supremacy.
6:00–8:00 p.m.
Take a break from studying and join us for a night of holiday cheer and connection with other students!
Student Panel:
- Nick Batchelder - J.P. Morgan, Summer Analyst
- Nicholas Laureano - Microsoft, Software Engineering Intern
- Taliek Lopez-Duboff - US House of Representatives, Legislative Intern
- Tarek Anthony - OPB, News Intern
Hone your networking skills while making meaningful connections with other ambitious students from diverse backgrounds, and enjoy FREE food and drinks.
Connect@UO is the premier student-run networking organization at the University of Oregon, hosting twice-per-term networking mixers and various pop-up events for all majors. We strive to uplift the community, help students enhance their networking skills, and connect individuals with those they never thought they would meet.
For more information about the event and Connect@UO, visit our Instagram page @connect.uo
Bring a friend and get ready for a great time!
4:00 p.m.
Join the Department of Geography for the Colloquium Series talk with Aurora Roth on “What we (don’t) talk about when we talk about science in Greenland.”
Free and open to the public
Aurora Roth is a PhD candidate at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, working with Dr. Fiamma Straneo. With an interdisciplinary team, they explore the connections between glaciers, ocean, ecosystems, and climate in Greenland’s glacial fjords. She has been part of icy research and education in Alaska, Antarctica, and Greenland for over a decade and is passionate about creating responsive, reflective, and inclusive science that benefits Arctic communities and people.
The fjords of Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland) are meeting places. They are where freshwater from ice melt meets the salty ocean and where deep, warm, nutrient-rich ocean waters meet glaciers, sustaining ecosystems that Greenlandic communities rely on for hunting and fishing. And now, they are places where Greenlandic hunters and fishers are meeting research boats and cruise ships. In the last decade, research and interest in Greenland has amplified–this has consequences for the kinds of science that is possible and for how Greenlanders respond to international science interest in their home. How are Greenlanders viewing this current moment and what are they asking of foreign scientists who come to do research in Greenland? What are the responsibilities of a scientist, like myself, studying melting ice in Greenland? I’ll share some current research and how our research group is navigating the colonial past and present that all science is embedded in.