Academic Affairs

A letter from the Dean:

I was trained as and spent my teaching career as an English professor, specializing in U.S. literature. From that period, I would often turn to Zora Neale Hurston, an early twentieth-century writer of amazing talent; Their Eyes Were Watching God is the best-known, but only one text in her impressive canon. But before she became a literary great, Hurston also was a student. In one of her personal essays, she reflected on her own college years -- she majored in anthropology -- and she said that what she learned in college was how "to poke and pry with a purpose."

At Knox, we invite students to do the same. We ask that our students be curious, to ask questions, to find answers, to apply what they learn in a class to what they do in life, to learn from each other in the diversity of voices and experiences that is Knox, and ultimately, to live their own education. Along the way, Knox students find remarkable people -- faculty, staff, and students -- who give them the tools and the support, who challenge and respect them, so that they can become the people they always were meant to be.

What we offer our students is simple -- we give them the opportunity to live their own education and the freedom, the space, and support to flourish. We give them the space and the tools to "poke," to "pry," and to ask their own questions and to find their own purposes. We offer our students the opportunity to engage with the campus and the community, and to embrace and realize their own potential.  This is Knox.

Laura Behling
Dean of the College