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   Graduate & Professional :: College of Arts and Sciences :: Liberal Studies
 
  

Program Description

The master of arts in liberal studies (MALS) degree program enables mature individuals to pursue part-time, interdisciplinary studies at the graduate level without specializing in any one subject area. Offered at night and during the weekend, courses provide participants the opportunity to extend the best experiences of baccalaureate liberal education to the graduate level. Students admitted to the program will identify their own interests within the wide array of graduate courses in The College of Arts and Sciences and will plan individualized programs of study with the cooperation of the director of the program.

The end result of each participant's matriculation should be a challenging experience that samples the richness of literature, the fine arts, history and those principles of the social and natural sciences that affect our lives. UMKC is fortunate to have the additional cultural resources of a wide array of museums, libraries, archives, and special exhibits within the Kansas City area. Many of the courses available for the M.A. in liberal studies curriculum are designed to take specific advantage of these community resources.

The 21st Century: Complex Communities, Cultures and Critical Choices

The broader unifying experience of courses, offered M.A. in liberal studies participants, is the opportunity to explore some of the basic issues affecting life in modern urban America. Students explore problems such as the environment, international conflict and social problems of the modern city, topics which are not single topics of study, but intricate, complex issues. The interdisciplinary nature of the M.A. in liberal studies coursework provides the mechanism to look at these problems, and others, with a deeper understanding of exactly how contemporary problems are interrelated with one another and with past history.

Each semester, the critical choices theme is reflected through the offering of at least one of the following courses:

  • A&S 5510 Methods of Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary History of the 1930s
  • A&S 5511 Methods of Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary History of the 1940s
  • A&S 5512 Methods of Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary History of the 1950s
  • A&S 5513 Methods of Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary History of the 1960s
  • A&S 5514 Critical Choices: Methods of Inquiry in Science
Each of these courses is designed to explore, in an interdisciplinary manner, interrelationships among contemporary issues and past history and influences upon contemporary decision making.

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