Leadership and Personalized Studies

Department website

College: College of Arts & Humanities

Career Possibilities:

There are many possible careers for liberal studies graduates, depending on how students plan their coursework. Graduates from our program work in all sorts of industries including business, politics, natural resources, marketing, and public relations - just to name a few.  Others enroll in graduate programs ranging from law school, business administration, communication, women and gender studies, and professional studies.

Program Overview

Mission

Our mission is to provide flexible, innovative degree programs to students whose needs and interests are not limited to a single discipline. Grounded in the liberal arts tradition, we prepare graduates to:

• Communicate effectively
• Think critically and creatively
• Make connections across disciplines
• Become knowledgeable, engaged citizens of our local and global communities
• Assume leadership roles and apply their knowledge in all areas of their professional and personal lives

The liberal studies major is often a degree-completion option for transfer and returning students, including working adults interested in career advancement. Because of its flexibility and appreciation of interdisciplinarity, the liberal studies major is an ideal fit for transfer and returning students, as well working adults interested in growing their skillset for career advancement. By recognizing themes in students’ previous coursework, liberal studies advisors help students identify and structure individually cohesive concentrations that embody their interests and past academic background. These concentrations, along with the LBST core and modest lower-level coursework requirements, provide students a meaningful, personalized, viable, and efficient path toward graduation.

Vision

We believe that students educated in our program will have the skills to meet the many challenges of today’s workplace. Moreover, because our students have the flexibility to choose classes in multiple disciplines, they can design a major that better addresses their individual career goals. Liberal studies is committed to helping students create their own paths to degree completion, career success, and ultimately a more fulfilling quality of life. We envision our program, students, and graduates helping to shape a community that is intellectually engaged, globally connected, environmentally responsible, diverse, and inclusive.

Program Competency Areas

The liberal studies curriculum is guided by six areas in which students are expected to demonstrate competency. These areas should guide students’ course selection as well as their focus within particular courses. Understanding of the competencies is demonstrated by the successful completion of a senior seminar project. The competency areas are as follows:

Communication:
Effective communication skills include listening, speaking, reading, writing, and information literacy.

Ethical Reasoning and Action:
Individual, social, and environmental responsibility includes civic knowledge and engagement (both global and local).

History:
Recognizing patterns in past events and seeing their relevance to present-day life; demonstrating how contemporary social issues are rooted in past events and political choices; understanding the impacts of the social and physical environments on individual experience; and speculating in informed ways about how present-day trends might affect the future.

Critical and Creative Thinking:
The capacity to combine or synthesize existing ideas and information; comprehensively explore issues, ideas, objects, and events before reaching a conclusion.

Intercultural Knowledge:
Understanding and empathizing with people from diverse cultures; understanding societies and cultures on their own terms; interacting and working with people from diverse backgrounds; and leading or contributing support to those who lead.

Interdisciplinary Perspective:
The ability to make deliberate connections among various academic disciplines, to comprehend and participate in more than one discipline; the ability to reflect on the nature and value of an interdisciplinary perspective.

Preparation for Graduate School

Completion of a liberal studies major is ideal preparation for graduate programs that value education in the liberal arts, social sciences, and cross-disciplinary pursuits

Programs Offered

• Leadership and Personalized Studies (AA)

Leadership and Personalized Studies Major Concentrations

• Humanities
• Leadership and Organizational Studies
• Social Science Studies
• Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies
• Individually Designed

Leadership and Personalized Studies Major Online Degree Completion Program Concentrations

• Leadership and Organizational Studies Concentration
• Social Science Studies Concentration
• Individually Designed Concentration

Courses in Liberal Studies