Liberal Studies

Core courses 

LACS 6005 Foundations of Liberal Studies  

LACS 6010 Interdisciplinary Learning Design  

LACS 6015 Exploring your Field: The Academic Literature Review  

Models of Critical Inquiry (choose one):  LACS 6020 Models of Critical Inquiry: Art Aesthetics & the Body OR LACS 6025 Models of Critical Inquiry: Landscapes of Learning OR LACS 6027 Models of Critical Inquiry: How We Know OR LACS 6030 Models of Critical Inquiry: Relationships to the Past - History & Culture OR LACS 6035 Models of Critical Inquiry: Science & Society. 

Elective courses 

Students design and/or select their electives through a combination of individualized electives, scheduled electives, transfer credit or cross registration. 

Individualized electives are those in which students work one-to-one with a faculty member in their field. These electives are designed during the process of planning the degree program in Perspectives on Interdisciplinary Study and focus on a specific area of inquiry. Students interact regularly with a course instructor through face-to-face meetings, the phone and/or email. These electives are an opportunity to delve deeply into a specific topic, to work closely with a faculty member, and to develop habits of close reading and in-depth analysis. 

Scheduled electives are offered each semester primarily in online formats. Typically, scheduled electives are structured around a broad theme: creativity, concepts of time and space, the role of culture, gender and sexuality, multiculturalism, social change. Scheduled electives begin with shared readings and assignments. Each student then designs an individual project in a focused area relevant both to the general theme and the student’s degree program. 

Up to 9 transfer credits from previous graduate work can be included in the degree program. These credits must be directly relevant to the student’s degree program.  

Students are permitted to cross register for courses from another graduate program. This allows students to draw on local academic networks, engage with a local scholarly community, and access local facilities. These opportunities are often particularly important for the technical aspects of a student’s degree program such as video production, photographic technique or lab science.  

Capstone 

LACS 7025 Capstone Project