Office: Humanities Center, Room 250p
Telephone: 410‑617‑2841
email: liberalstudies@loyola.edu
Website: www.loyola.edu/academics/liberal-studies

Director: Randall P. Donaldson, Associate Professor of Modern Languages and Literatures (German)
Director, Program Operations: Steven A. Burr, Affiliate in Liberal Studies
 

Core Faculty

Professors: Drew Leder, Graham McAleer; Brian Murray; Thomas Ward
Associate Professors: Randall P. Donaldson

Faculty from a variety of academic departments and specializations, particularly in the humanities, also teach courses in the program.

The graduate program in liberal studies is designed to satisfy a wide variety of student interests. It exists for those whose professional lives demand a greater expertise or a broader knowledge base: teachers who want a graduate degree in a content area and government workers or librarians whose advancement requires further academic work. It also exists for those whose professions demand a greater breadth: business persons, lawyers, physicians, and anyone whose education has been so specialized that it did not provide the diversity necessary to an understanding of the complex social and intellectual currents of the time. The program exists for those who are intellectually curious: people from all walks of life who feel the need to examine unexpected aspects of the modern experience just to see what is there and to refine their perspectives. It exists for all who believe that the mind constantly needs to be enriched, to be challenged to see new things, or to see old things in new ways.

Because of its convictions, the program blends the traditional with the innovative. It is traditional in that it is a graduate program which emphasizes the academic rigor long associated with a graduate school and with the Jesuit traditions of Loyola University Maryland. It is innovative in that the traditional graduate emphasis upon depth of focus and research has been replaced by an emphasis upon breadth of reading and study.

The graduate program in liberal studies challenges students to continue their journey as citizens who: interact energetically and creatively with a changing world; grow in their awareness of cultural tendencies; cultivate their analytical and communication skills to reach their full potential; develop and expand a commitment to others; attain a broader perspective on contemporary problems and opportunities; and become, in the Jesuit ideal central to Loyola's educational mission, men and women for others.

Grounded in a core commitment to the liberal arts and sciences central to the University's mission, the graduate program in liberal studies aims to liberate in the classic sense of that term. It reaches out to those who want a rich and satisfying intellectual experience, as well as enhancement of their analytical and communication skills. Its subject matter is the whole spectrum of the modern American experience, as well as the roots of that experience as we discover them in other times and cultures. Areas of study include, but are not limited to, literature, business, economics, the arts, politics, philosophy, science, sociology, and intellectual and social history. Although the program is not practitioner-oriented and does not inevitably lead to a doctorate, liberal studies graduates often discover career benefits—in the development of the Jesuit ideal eloquentia perfecta— as well as personal satisfaction and enrichment.

Classes are held on the Baltimore, Columbia, and Timonium Campuses. Inquiries and questions can be sent to liberalstudies@loyola.edu.

Programs

• Liberal Studies, M.A.

• Liberal Studies, Master's Plus

Courses

• LS 755 - The Dynamic of the City
• LS 756 - Service and Meaningful Work
• LS 757 - The American Short Story
• LS 758 - How to Read the World: First Signifiers
• LS 759 - That Shakespearean Cinema