The Master of Arts in Liberal Studies (MA, ALM, MLA, MLS or MALS) is a graduate degree that aims to provide both depth and breadth of study in the liberal arts. It is by nature an interdisciplinary program, generally pulling together coursework from a number of the humanities and social sciences. Similar graduate degrees are known as Master of Liberal Arts (MLA), Master of Liberal Studies (MLS), Artium Liberalium Magister (ALM), and Doctor of Liberal Studies (DLS). Characteristics that distinguish these degrees include curricular flexibility and interdisciplinary synthesis via Master's thesis or capstone project. Like other Master's degree programs, students generally enroll in a master's in liberal studies only after receiving a bachelor's degree. As of 2005, there were over 130 colleges and universities offering liberal arts master's programs. Admissions criteria vary by institution.
Postgraduate liberal studies originated at Wesleyan University in 1953. Administrators sought to 'break graduate education free' from what they perceived as 'the bonds of overspecialization' then prevalent at colleges and universities throughout the United States and Europe. Initially aimed at professors and teachers, postgraduate liberal studies quickly gained popularity and became a cause célèbre during the progressive education movements of the 1960s. Then as now, Liberal Studies programs tend to draw courses and instructors from across a university's postgraduate curriculum. Students often devise unique courses of study to suit their individual interests. Typically liberal arts graduate programs are designed to counter the trend in modern education toward specialization and toward a career focus, offering instead the opportunity to explore ideas, to pursue knowledge for the sake of knowledge, and learning for the joy of the intellectual challenge.
Many institutions followed Wesleyan's initiative. Early proponents of graduate liberal studies included Dartmouth College, Stony Brook University, Southern Methodist University, Duke University, Johns Hopkins University, and Georgetown University. Other prestigious universities such as Stanford University, Northwestern University, Washington University in St. Louis, University of Pennsylvania, University of Southern California, Columbia University, Brown University, and Emory University have graduate degrees in liberal studies.
In 2005, Georgetown University became the world's first university to offer a Doctor of Liberal Studies. The Doctorate in Liberal Studies is offered through The School of Continuing Studies and the Graduate School at Georgetown.
The Association of Graduate Liberal Studies Programs supports the work of the many member universities and colleges by holding a national conference each year and by publishing Confluence: The Journal of Graduate Liberal Studies, which features writing by faculty and students of the member institutions.
Famous quotes containing the words master of, master, arts, liberal and/or studies:
“Master of the universe but not of myself, I am the only rebel against my absolute power.”
—Pierre Corneille (1606–1684)
“The old proverb is very well parted between my master Shylock and you, sir: you have the grace of God, sir, and he hath enough.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“A man must be clothed with society, or we shall feel a certain bareness and poverty, as of a displaced and unfurnished member. He is to be dressed in arts and institutions, as well as in body garments. Now and then a man exquisitely made can live alone, and must; but coop up most men and you undo them.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“But alas! I never could keep a promise. I do not blame myself for this weakness, because the fault must lie in my physical organization. It is likely that such a very liberal amount of space was given to the organ which enables me to make promises, that the organ which should enable me to keep them was crowded out. But I grieve not. I like no half-way things. I had rather have one faculty nobly developed than two faculties of mere ordinary capacity.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“The conduct of a man, who studies philosophy in this careless manner, is more truly sceptical than that of any one, who feeling in himself an inclination to it, is yet so over-whelm’d with doubts and scruples, as totally to reject it. A true sceptic will be diffident of his philosophical doubts, as well as of his philosophical conviction; and will never refuse any innocent satisfaction, which offers itself, upon account of either of them.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)