Academics
Graduate Program in Liberal Studies
The Graduate Program in Liberal Studies is designed for those who have completed a bachelor’s degree and who want to enhance their ability to organize conceptually the social, scientific, and humanistic dimensions of topics that illuminate the world of the twenty-first century. Interdisciplinary in nature, graduate education in the liberal arts is based on the assumption that beyond the technical competence required for certain tasks, people need the breadth and wisdom that have traditionally been fostered by the liberal arts. The program leads to a Master of Liberal Studies (M/LS) degree.
Business men and women have found that a graduate liberal arts program provides a perspective that helps them make better decisions and deal more effectively with contemporary issues.
Class of 2007At the heart of the M/LS program is a series of interdisciplinary seminars, team-taught by faculty members representing different disciplines. The emphasis in these specially designed seminars is on bringing together the approaches of the three areas of the liberal arts curriculum, the social sciences, the physical sciences, and the humanities, rather than on acquiring specialized knowledge in one of them. The aim of the program, then, is to foster the ability to integrate knowledge from several fields and to deal with major questions in light of the wisdom afforded by a broad knowledge of the liberal arts.
Teachers enroll in graduate liberal studies programs as an attractive alternative to further graduate work in education or in a single academic discipline; they find that the broad concerns of a nondisciplinary master’s program more closely match their needs.
Adults pursuing advanced study for their own enrichment and pleasure choose graduate liberal arts education as an alternative to a self-directed program of reading or to a series of unrelated adult education courses. These students find that they receive a carefully organized, coherent approach to further learning in association with other adults who share similar interests.
Class of 2006