Master of Liberal Studies

Information Session:
Thursday, January 8, 2009 from 6-8:00 PM
Location: Expressway Tower Building  @ 6116 Central Expressway, Dallas, TX 75206 in Suite #200 room 208
Click here for directions:  www.smu.edu/maps
Please send an email to mls@smu.edu to RSVP.
Refreshments will be served.

Click Here for the Spring 2009 Newsletter!

Click Here for the Spring 2009 Course Descriptions

The Master of Liberal Studies (MLS) program offers a broad approach to the study of the liberal arts, addressing cross sections of knowledge and blending information from the behavioral sciences, fine arts, humanities, and social sciences to create deeper levels of understanding.  Individuals examine the expanse of human achievement through multiple lens in order to learn more about themselves; the social, political, and natural environments in which they live; and the world at large.

If there has been a single precept that has shaped the curriculum it has been that each course must present an idea that is both timeless in nature and socially or culturally relevant.  All of the courses reflect this precept through contemporary considerations of fundamental human issues. Meeting the challenges of an increasingly complex society is difficult at best but made easier with the historical perspective that MLS courses apply to the fundamental issues that confront us.  While the technological and scientific achievements of humankind have created untold possibilities for a more technologically sophisticated future, it will be those who have the capacity to understand the human journey across time who can imagine a brighter and better world beyond the next innovation.

How useful, then is an MLS degree?  A greater understanding of cultures and values, an expanded historical and geographical context in which to consider current issues, the exchange of viewpoints in a classroom filled with a diverse group of professional adults led by a distinguished faculty member ... such is learning that is of the greatest use, both in the workplace and in private life.

All MLS courses are taught during evening hours.

Behavioral sciences courses examine the individual and its behavior in various environmental settings such as family and the workplace. Courses introduce students to issues in human development and human relations and to human behavior as it is influenced by cultural values and expectations.

Humanities courses offer the broadest possible treatments of literature, philosophy, religion, and communications. Included are courses that examine the ways in which literature supplies us with images of business and technology and heroines and heroes. Here, too, are courses that explore nonreligions and review the freedom of expression in the media.

Fine arts courses offer a variety of perspectives on artistic expression throughout history and across cultures. The variety of courses encourages students to integrate the study of Western and non-Western art and architecture with the sociohistorical context in which they are embedded.

Science and culture courses deal with many issues, including health, the environment, and pollution as approached by professors of chemistry, geology, physics, and biology. Students will find the historical and philosophical approach to these subjects accessible and challenging.

Social science courses provide a blend of history, economics, and political science in the study of wealth, power, and status. These courses enable the student to step away from the headlines and slogans of the day and take a long look at what it means - and has meant - to be a thoughtful citizen of the world.

If there has been a single precept that has shaped the MLS curriculum, it has been that each course must present an idea that is both timeless in nature and socially or culturally relevant. For individuals interested in foreign study opportunities, several MLS courses are taught abroad each summer. An inquiring mind serves as the major prerequisite for study in any MLS course.

The Value of the Liberal Arts in Today's World

The most frequent response of prospective students when they first encounter our catalog and the concept of graduate liberal studies is:  “It sounds wonderful . . . but what can I do with it?”   Why is it that the liberal arts are considered, in today’s world, an educational luxury item?  In today’s world – or more precisely, in today’s business world of global transactions, fast-paced change, and floods of information – the ability to think critically and contextually about a wide range of issues is vital.

Philosophically, the MLS degree is tied to the earliest ideas of education.  In 1852 John Henry Cardinal Newman wrote in The Idea of a University that the liberal education “is simply the cultivation of the intellect, and as such its object is nothing more or less than intellectual excellence.”  Yet in today’s educational milieu, where most learning is characterized by a specialized path that helps individuals achieve professional success, the MLS’s broad-based, multidisciplinary curriculum represents (to use a current business phrase) “thinking outside of the box.”  A greater understanding of cultures and values, an expanded historical and geographical context in which to consider current issues, the exchange of viewpoints in a diverse classroom filled with professional adults from all walks of life -- this is learning that is of the greatest use, in the workplace as well as in our private lives.

SMU’s MLS catalog describes the educational objectives of the program, and its role in the practical world, this way:

Two kinds of learning touch and diverge, keeping the intellect braced to act and conditioned to endure.  Vertical learning takes off straight up, cutting a narrow, precise slice through the particular.  The specialist operates on this vertical axis, using professional training to transport thought beyond the imaginable.  Horizontal learning assumes a broader approach, addressing a cross section of knowledge and blending information from different fields to reach new levels of understanding.

Few would debate that technological advances have done much to open exciting possibilities for a better future.  Yet specialized knowledge allows only a moment for reflection before it changes shape to reappear transformed and unfamiliar.  Only those with a capacity to take a long look into all that has passed will possess the vision to imagine a future that stretches beyond the next innovation.

Pace and perspective, balance and form belong to the province of the liberal arts.  Everywhere along the horizontal line the same questions emerge, dissolve, and reemerge:  What is justice?  What deserves to be defended?  Why do civilizations flourish?  What are we to value?

The leaders of the Association for Graduate Liberal Studies Programs (AGLSP) have also wrestled with this balance between “vertical” and “horizontal” learning.  In its earlier publications, the association stressed the need for such programs as a reaction against learning that had become increasingly utilitarian: 

Unfortunately, the dominant spirit of our times has encouraged us to evaluate the worth of any enterprise, including liberal learning, in terms of concrete results: the product.  As a result we are seduced into assessing the success of liberal learning solely in “objective” terminology, for example, in terms of salaries, vocational advancement, satisfactory social adjustment, marriage, and career.  As Schiller put it nearly two hundred years ago, “Utility is the great idol of time, to which all powers do homage and all subjects are subservient.”

But in a more recent revision of this statement of mission, liberal arts proponents wonder whether the “practical” side of such a degree has been underemphasized.  This rethinking comes primarily, they claim, from listening to what GLS students tell them they get from the programs:

They are always telling us how useful the degree is.  A communications entrepreneur taking a course on the relationships between chaos theory, plate tectonics, and evolutionary biology writes a note to the director of his program exclaiming that “there’s so much knowledge here, and it’s so practical.”  A mortgage banker takes a class which explores the changing images of the universe from Plato to Kepler.  She considers the idea that science is largely a social construct and that numbers and formulas which seem to be derived strictly from rational, “scientific” processes are dependent upon theology and a host of other cultural constructs as well.  Suddenly she begins to wonder how the numbers in mortgage tables got there, what cultural “norms” they’re dependent on, and her master’s project explores fundamental ways to alter practices that have upheld the racial and class biases she found “surrounding” mortgage figures.  It is helping the way she works, and her industry works, day by day, practically. . . .  “What struck me,” wrote the reviewer after meeting with several students, “was the way that each one of them, while rejecting further professional education, was able to bring insights gleaned from liberal studies back to their workplace.”

Business does not operate in a vacuum.  It operates within history and within culture and is almost completely shaped those forces.  Likewise, a business enterprise is no more than the individuals who, as leaders, workers, and consumers, shape its path.  By integrating the humanities into the world of commerce, both individuals and businesses not only prosper but make a contribution to the creation of a better, more thoughtful future.

Students design their own program of study to focus on specific areas or to attain desired breadth in disparate fields. A student must successfully complete 36 credit hours of graduate study within 6 years. In some cases, up to 6 graduate credit hours with a grade of "A" or "B" from another accredited university or from other schools of SMU may be applied toward the requirements of the MLS degree.

MLS students are highly motivated and mature adults who bring a variety of professional skills, life experiences, and educational backgrounds to their courses. This variety among MLS students adds a measure of depth and intellectual excitement to classes that is not ordinarily found in a graduate program.

Announcement!

The National Association of Graduate Liberal Studies Programs has recognized SMU's own Dr. Rick Halperin as its recipient of this year’s AGLSP National Faculty Award!

This prestigious and competitive award recognizes an outstanding faculty member in one of the full-member institutions of AGLSP who exemplifies the qualities of interdisciplinary, liberal learning, and who has participated significantly in teaching, mentoring, and advising students, as well as actively participated in other faculty service in a graduate liberal studies program.

Dr. Halperin has been associated with our liberal studies program for over two decades; he started teaching in the program in 1985.  While trained as a historian, his disposition is interdisciplinary, drawing upon social, political, cultural, and economic perspectives to help students understand and value human rights.

Special Notice:  The Graduate Liberal Studies office has moved to 6060 Central Expressway Suite 642, Dallas, TX 75206.

Contact Us

Email: mls@smu.edu 
Phone: 214-768-4273
Fax: 214-768-2104
Postal Mail: Master of Liberal Studies, Southern Methodist University, P.O. Box 750253, Dallas, TX 75275-0253

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