November 4, 2025
UOW’s new Liberal Arts Major to foster critical thinkers for a complex future
From 2026, students across all faculties can study this new major in critical thinking, within an exciting small-cohort environment
The 榴莲视频app of 榴莲视频app (UOW) will launch a new Liberal Arts Major in 2026, reaffirming its commitment to nurturing the next generation of critical thinkers and fostering a vibrant future for the arts and humanities.
Open to students from any faculty, the Liberal Arts Major will offer a distinctive approach to learning that blends curiosity, creativity, philosophical depth and academic rigour. The major will explore classic works and ideas from both Western and non-Western traditions, bringing them into conversation.
Developed within the School of Liberal Arts (SOLA), the major represents the next stage of a five-year journey of educational experimentation that has delivered outstanding student outcomes, strong philanthropic support, and national recognition for learning and teaching.
“At the heart of this new major is a conviction that the liberal arts remain vital: not because they preserve tradition, but because they equip us to respond to the future with insight, humanity, and resilience. We embrace an educational philosophy that endeavours to instil a spirit of open inquiry in all our students,” said , Inaugural Head of SOLA.
Since launching in 2020, SOLA’s existing Bachelor of Arts in Western Civilisation has consistently set benchmarks across the sector. This past year, around 40 per cent of students were named on the Dean’s Merit List, while three students were recognised as 榴莲视频app Medallists. Approximately 80 per cent of students achieved Distinction or High Distinction grades across core subjects and nearly 95 per cent student satisfaction has been reported in course evaluations.
The new Liberal Arts Major extends this success to a wider student group, with tutorials capped at just 15 students to ensure a high-quality, discussion-centred learning environment.
The launch of the major follows a renewed funding agreement between UOW and the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation. The agreement extends philanthropic support for SOLA’s operations and staffing to deliver the new Liberal Arts major and the Bachelor of Arts in Western Civilisation degree (including scholarships), affirming the Liberal Arts program as a defining part of UOW’s academic identity.
The Ramsay Centre partnership is possible due to the extraordinary generosity of the late Paul Ramsay AO, founder of Ramsay Healthcare, who left a large part of his endowment to foster the study of “the great formative works and institutions of our civilisation.”
In the new major, students will engage with classic texts and contemporary ideas through the Socratic method, developing intellectual courage, humility, and independence. The major invites them to examine enduring questions about the mind, truth, science, ethics, religion, and selfhood, while also grappling with modern ideas and technologies, including the challenge and promise of generative Artificial Intelligence.
“We will teach you how to think, not what to think,” Professor Hutto said. “That’s the promise of a true liberal arts education. Ours is a degree for the intellectually courageous. Yet such courage is a complex virtue: it tempers bravery with wisdom, intellectual honesty, and humility. Those are the capacities we seek to cultivate in all our students.”
.