In 1960, the Cabinet agreed to establish Chiang Mai University. Among the faculties proposed was a Faculty of Law. However, a survey of the educational interests of the people in the north between 1961-1962 reflected very little interest in this field. In addition some experts advised that they should go for more general fields of Social Sciences at the beginning stage. Furthermore, a Faculty of Law would need very special expertise that posed difficulty even in Bangkok. The Ministry of Education then appointed a committee of ten people to work on the detailed curriculum of Social Sciences on July 11, 1963, with Mr. Kasem Uthayanin as the chairman and Mrs. Sumana Khamthong as the secretary.
The Faculty of Social Sciences is located at the foot of Doi Suthep between Suthep Road and Huay Kaew Road, Tambon Suthep, Mueang District, Chiang Mai Province, approximately four kilometers form Chiang Mai City, covering over ten rai of land (27 rai at present). At first it had no building of its own so it had to use some parts of the Chemistry Building of the Faculty of Science and the Mens Dormitory 1. In 1966, the first Social Science Building was in use.
The Faculty of Social Sciences was one of the first three faculties established at Chiang Mai University; the other two faculties were Humanities and Sciences in 1964. In the first year, it had only three departments: Geography, Sociology and Anthropology, Accounting and Business Administration. Two years later, two more faculties were added: Political Science and Economics.
The objective of the faculty is to produce social science graduates in the existing five fields at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. The Masters Degree program was offered I Economics Geography and Political Science. By 1990, two more MA programs were offered: Accounting and Business Administration and Social Anthropology. This makes it offer a full undergraduate and graduate (Masters Degree) levels in all five fields since 1990.
In 1991, the law program was added to the undergraduate curriculum. And one year after that, the Faculty of Economics was granted approval and announced in the Royal Gazette on August 28, 1992 along with the Faculty of Accounting and Business Administration, followed by the upgrading of the Business Administration Department to faculty status as announced in the Royal Gazette on December 19, 1992.
At present, the Faculty of Social Sciences offers the teaching and learning at the undergraduate, Masters Degree and the Doctoral Degree level in four areas: Geography, Socio-anthropology, Womens Studies, and Social Science and Development. The Political Science Department was granted approval to set up the Faculty of Political Science and Public Administration (as an autonomous unit of Chiang Mai University) by the consent of the Chiang Mai University Council at the meeting on December 24, 2005 and the Faculty of Law was also approved in the Chiang Mai University Council meeting of April 20, 2006, with the status of an autonomous unit of Chiang Mai University.
References
Chiang Mai University. (1990). Khroprop 25 pi mahawithayalai
Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai: Chiang Mai University.
Chiang Mai University. Faculty of Social Sciences. (2012).
Prawat khanasangkhomsat mahawitiyalai Chiang Mai.
Retrieved on July 24, 2012 from http://www.soc.cmu.ac.th/web/
history.html.
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