The Faculty of Arts is the largest faculty of the University of Calgary. It is also one of the university's founding faculties, along with commerce, education, engineering, graduate studies, science, and physical education. The official establishment of the current Faculty of Arts was in 2010, following the amalgamation of the four former Faculties of Communication and Culture, Fine Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences. However, the Faculty of Arts can further trace its origins back to 1951 under the Faculty of Arts and Science, as it was originally merged with the university's natural sciences departments. This curious measure of dates makes the Faculty of Arts the second oldest faculty as well as the youngest faculty of the university simultaneously, depending on where one counts. Since then, the Faculty of Arts has expanded to become the university's most comprehensive and interdisciplinary faculty, incorporating fields from the humanities, fine arts, and social sciences.
Due to its extensive nature, the Faculty of Arts is housed in various buildings throughout the main campus. The Faculty of Arts currently has more than 7,100 undergraduate students with more than 725 graduate students. The student population is overseen by 378 academic faculty members with the aid of 132 administrative and support staff. Since 1966, the Faculty of Arts has produced 10 Canada Research Chairs, 20 fellows of the Royal Society of Canada, and well over 46,000 alumni throughout the world.
