Liberal Arts (MLA)

Overview

The Master of Liberal Arts Program is an interdisciplinary graduate program for adults interested in crossing the boundaries of a traditional, career-oriented approach. It is of particular interest to those who want to explore new disciplines in the liberal arts, who wish to supplement their professional education by continued intellectual growth, or who simply wish to satisfy their continuing intellectual curiosity and creativity.

The Master of Liberal Arts program has become popular with educators who desire an alternative to traditional education graduate programs. A number of elementary, middle, and high school educators have used the program to accumulate continuing professional education credits required in Maryland and Pennsylvania.

McDaniel College is a member of the Association of Graduate Liberal Studies Programs.

Full Acceptance

Students must have:

• Fulfilled all requirements for initial admission;
• Met with the program coordinator to prepare their program of study; and
• Submitted three letters of reference to the Office of Graduate Admissions.

Courses

The M.L.A. program consists of ten, three-credit courses, a one-credit research methods course, and a Final Project worth six-credits for a total of 37 credit hours. Although there are required courses, the program’s primary feature is that students are expected to design self-design a Program of Study. This flexibility allows students to pursue courses that best reflect their personal and professional interests. The MLA program has the following requirements.

1. A brief, written rationale must accompany the proposed program of study. The rationale should elaborate on how the chosen courses will satisfy the student’s personal and/or professional interests. The program of study must be approved by the coordinator.
2. Complete four required courses (13 credits):

• Ancient World – examines the world’s most influential books, people, and ideas before 1500 A.D. (3 credits)
• Modern World – examines the world’s most influential books, people, and ideas since 1500 A.D. (3 credits)
• Writing and Information Literacy - helps students recognize, understand, locate, and effectively use information resources that are the building blocks for research papers, theses, and project. (1 credit)
• Final Project – a culminating project completed under the guidance of a McDaniel College faculty member. (6 credits)

3. Specializations – Students may specialize their course of study in the MLA program.  Completion of a specialization will be noted on the final transcript.  The fields of specialization are: Environmental Literacy (EL), Fine Arts (FA), Language and Literature (LL), and Social Studies (SS).

• For students who wish to complete one of the specialization tracks in the MLA program, four (4) of the elective courses (12 credits) within the Program of Study must come from that specialization and the final project must be completed in that area of specialization.

4. Select one of the following options for completion of the remaining courses (24 credits):

• At least one course (3 credits) from Cultural Heritage.
• At least one course (3 credits) from Contemporary Society.
• At least one course (3 credits) from Creative Process.
• Five elective courses (15 credits) – three courses must come from the M.L.A. curriculum, and two courses may come from outside the M.L.A. curriculum.
  Cultural Heritage, Contemporary Society, and Creative Process courses are designated as such within the course descriptions as are the specializations of Environmental Literacy, Fine Arts, Language & Literature, and Social Studies.

5. Only one independent study can count toward the degree program.