Liberal Studies
PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
The Master of Arts in Liberal Studies program allows students to shape their own course of study across the graduate curriculum in the humanities and social sciences. Through Liberal Studies, students can combine multiple interests through an interdisciplinary and coherent approach to graduate education.
PROGRAM REQUIREMENTS
The Master of Arts in Liberal Studies requires 30 credits or 10 three-credit courses, consisting of the following:
- Two proseminars
- Seven courses chosen from graduate course offerings in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
- Directed Readings capstone course (three credits)
- Qualifying Portfolio
The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences offers almost 200 courses in the humanities and social sciences to choose from across the curriculum. Almost all courses are offered in the late afternoon and evening. To ensure a breadth of exposure to multiple disciplines, students may take no more than three courses in any one graduate department.
All courses, including the Directed Readings requirement, will be selected by the students in consultation with their academic advisors. It is expected in completing the Liberal Studies program's requirements that the student will select courses that form an integrated course of studies, shaped by the student’s individual interests.
Offered in the fall and the spring, the Proseminar series is a survey of the liberal arts featuring invited lectures from inspiring faculty across the disciplines. The Proseminars culminate in personalized course plans for the MA based on students' initial interests. The series also serves as an introduction to the skills and expectations which are consistent with graduate-level work in the humanities and social sciences.
The fall Proseminar emphasizes the development of graduate-level reading and writing skills. The spring Proseminar focuses on conducting and presenting graduate-level research.
Upcoming Proseminar topics may include:
- Identity and Representation
- Technology and Society
- Justice
- Religion, Health and Culture
- Collapse of Complex Civilizations
- Sex and Gender in Nature and Society
A student may also propose to do an independent study on a topic that is not offered in Villanova's graduate course offerings. There is also precedent for Liberal Studies students to combine the Directed Readings course with an Independent Study to carry out a more ambitious culminating essay or project. The Independent Study replaces one of the disciplinary courses.
Students interested in further graduate study are strongly encouraged to enroll in a Research Methods course and should contact their academic advisor to learn more.
COMPLETING THE PROGRAM
There are two requirements for completing the program: The Directed Readings course and the Qualifying Portfolio.
The Directed Readings course is conducted in the final semester before graduating and is of the student's own design. It should explore a topic that has developed out of the student’s graduate work in Liberal Studies; it should also be a subject which the student wishes to pursue in greater depth. In addition, the Directed Readings experience enables students to cap their graduate study with a culminating essay or project. Many students choose to write a thesis (roughly 30 pages long), but depending on the topic and research/analysis methods, other project models may be more appropriate. The students should work closely with their advisor to decide on the format of the project. But whatever form it takes, the final result of the Directed Readings should be a significant and tangible work of graduate level research and analysis.
In addition, the student should work closely with the advisor throughout the process of reading, research and writing. We recommend that the advisor set up a schedule with the student for the following submissions:
- Thesis or project proposal (4-5 pages)
- Reading list
- Outline of project
- Essay drafts
- Final version of project/thesis
The student should follow the deadlines in the Graduate Academic calendar for the submission of the final project/thesis.
The thesis should conform to the academic standards of the primary discipline (including bibliographic citation method, research methods, etc). In addition, because Liberal Studies encourages interdisciplinary methods, we encourage students to draw on other disciplines where appropriate concerning the topic and research.
The Qualifying Portfolio consists of four papers originally submitted to satisfy the requirements for seminars taken in their normal course of study during the student’s coursework in Liberal studies, plus a short narrative describing how and why the student chose these essays. The papers should be representative of the student’s best work; in addition, the papers should indicate the scope and trajectory of the student’s course of studies. If an essay was submitted for the student's Directed Readings, that essay may be included in the portfolio. The papers may but need not be reworked by students prior to submitting them as part of their portfolio.
The portfolio will be reviewed by a committee that includes the student’s Directed Readings advisor, the Director of Graduate Liberal Studies, and one other faculty member familiar with the student’s work. The portfolio should also be accompanied by a short narrative (no more than five pages) describing why the student chose these papers, and how these papers demonstrate the trajectory of the student’s work in Graduate Liberal Studies. There will thus be five items in the portfolio: four essays, plus the short narrative.
The committee will then judge the portfolio based on the following criteria:
- interdisciplinary breadth
- a clear sense of trajectory
- mastery of the skills of critical research and writing on the graduate level
Once the committee has read through the portfolio, they meet with the student in a quasi- defense format to ask questions raised by the various papers and to allow the student to expand upon how these essays represent a summation of their work in Graduate Liberal Studies. The defense takes about an hour.