Law and Society

212 Minné Hall (History Dept.) (507.457.5400)

Faculty

John Campbell, Professor; BA, Wesleyan University; MA, PhD, University of Minnesota; 1996 –

Program and its Benefits to Students

As one of the central forces, processes, and institutions in modern life, the law (in all of its guises) merits the liberal-arts-based examination offered by the Law and Society Program. Law and Society is a richly interdisciplinary major that enables interested students to study law and legal culture from many different disciplinary, conceptual, historical, theoretical, and empirical perspectives. The Law and Society program offers numerous benefits for students as they pursue their post-collegiate life:

Because of their broad-based, multidisciplinary background, graduates of the Law and Society program will be able to participate more effectively and intelligently as citizens in an ever-changing world.
Successful participation in this program will provide a sound basis and preparation for students hoping to attend law or graduate school. Although law schools are quick to point out that many undergraduate majors in the liberal arts stand as good preparation, the law and society major, with its focus on the law in the context of an interdisciplinary and liberal arts education, will be especially attractive to law schools. Once in law school, knowledge acquired as a law and society major may give students an added advantage in their law school studies.
Even if law or graduate school is not the ultimate goal for students majoring in this program, the law and society major will endow any Winona State University student with the intellectual interests and abilities to achieve success (and satisfaction) in other post-collegiate endeavors.
For students pursuing employment after college, successfully majoring in law and society provides graduates with many valuable intellectual skills–thinking analytically, writing and speaking persuasively, reading and listening critically, and researching and organizing data systematically–desired by many employers. Such versatility is all the more desirable in a world where work and careers continually change.
By having examined the law from many different disciplines, law and society graduates will have valuable expertise to sell when seeking post-collegiate employment. Given the centrality of the law in contemporary American society, there are many potential employers—corporate, governmental, and nonprofit to name a few—who are eager to hire successful law and society majors for their understanding of how the law influences the workaday world of employers.

Requirements

For a checklist of the University’s graduation requirements, see the Academic Policies & University Requirements section of this catalog. Specific requirements for the law and society major include:

Being admitted to the program
Successfully completing the required courses with a minimum 2.50 GPA.
Successfully writing a capstone senior thesis on some topic involving the law. Although there is considerable flexibility in the choice of topic, the actual coursework for the thesis will be done in the history major sequence of HIST 298 - Historical Research Methods and Historiography and ◆ HIST 495 - Senior Research Seminar I .

The senior thesis gives students the opportunity to showcase much of their knowledge and understanding by doing their own in-depth research, analysis, and writing.