Liberal Studies

Bachelor of Arts

This is an interdisciplinary major designed primarily for students who desire a broad, multidisciplinary general education in the best tradition of the liberal arts and who wish to avoid the specialization of a major field. (Note: these requirements are for those students majoring in Liberal Studies only, not for those students majoring in both Liberal Studies and Education.)

Learning Outcomes
  • Students will demonstrate effective writing skills and distinguish between various uses of language, demonstrate critical thinking skills, and seek and evaluate the evidence that underlies claims.
  • Students will demonstrate an awareness of how values and perspectives shift in cultures over time, and how they shift according to nationality, race ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual preference, age, social class, and ability grouping. They will also demonstrate an understanding of the relationships among language, knowledge, and power.
  • Students will understand how various academic disciplines function together to facilitate understanding of culture and human nature.
  • Students will demonstrate an ability to formulate a research question, and to locate, evaluate and synthesize sources. Students will demonstrate an ability to document sources in various and appropriate styles. Students will understand the unique developmental needs of middle and high school students within the educational setting.
  • Students will recognize the value of curriculum knowledge, prior planning, and assessment strategies within middle and high-school settings.
  • Students will engage in exploration of pedagogy and best practice methods of education through direct experiences within diverse educational environments at the middle or high-school levels.
  • Students will demonstrate an understanding regarding the importance of empirically based evidence in the field of education as the basis for the expansion of knowledge as a crucial foundation for dynamic and effective teaching.

Major Requirements

Three (3) literature courses, including:

One course in American literature:

  • ENG2430: Survey of American Literature
  • ENG3400: Major Authors in American Literature, 1492 – 1865
  • ENG3410: Major Authors in American Literature, 1865 – Present

One course in Western literature:

  • ENG2410: World Literature I
  • ENG2420: World Literature II

Any third course in literature

Two (2) lab science courses, including:

  • One lab science course in the physical sciences (CHE or PHY)
  • One lab science course in the life sciences (BIO)

Three (3) courses meeting the general education requirements in Cultural Awareness.

 

Six (6) Social Awareness courses, including:

  • ECO1010 :World Economic Geography (non – Education majors may substitute any economics course)
  • HST1420: World History I
  • HST1510 or 1520: One course in U.S. History
  • POL1400: Introduction to American Politics
  • PSY1401: General Psychology I

One additional course meeting the General Education requirements in social awareness.

  • MATXXXX: One Math Course (usually MAT 1200)

Liberal Studies majors (with the exception of those students who are majoring in both Liberal Studies and Education) must earn a minor in any of the traditional liberal arts
fields in which the college offers advanced courses (biology, chemistry, economics, English, history, mathematics, philosophy, political science, psychology, sociology, or Spanish.) The student must take a minimum of five courses at the 2000- or 3000-level within his or her minor field. The student must also take two additional 3000-level courses in any of the traditional liberal-arts fields.  These last two courses need not be in the same field as the student’s minor.

Course Descriptions

This course provides a one-semester overview of American literature from the colonial period to the present. Authors studied may include Poe, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Douglass, Melville, Whitman, Dickinson, Twain, Frost, Hemingway, Faulkner, O’Neil, and Williams.

This course is a historical survey of American literature and its relation to American culture from its beginnings in 1492 through the Civil War. Authors studied may include Bradford, Bradstreet, Edwards, Franklin, Jefferson, Poe, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Douglass, Melville, Whitman, and Dickinson.

This course is a historical survey of American literature and its relation to American culture from the Civil War through the present. Authors studied may include Twain, Chopin, Frost, Hemingway, Faulkner, O’Neil, Williams, Updike, and Walker.

This meets the requirement as a writing intensive course in the major. This is a survey of outstanding literature of the Western World from Homer to the Renaissance. There will be selections from, as well as complete works of, such authors as Homer, the Greek dramatists, Virgil, and Dante.

This course surveys literature extending from Neo-Classical to modern literature. Selections include Racine, Moliere, Swift, Flaubert, Tolstoy, and Dostoyevski.

The course provides a systematic framework for understanding the contemporary world that we now live in. It is a world of interconnecting countries possessing special combinations of natural, cultural, social, political, and economic environments. The course will help the student to develop an appreciation of these countries and their individual impact on the rest of the world. This will lead to a better understanding of not only the old world order but, more importantly, the new world now evolving. The course breaks the world down into 12 geographical realms, each of which will be reviewed in detail.

This course will provide a survey of World History from the origins of humanity to the Fifteenth Century, just before the European “voyages of discovery” that brought the Americas and Pacific into contact with the rest of the world. It will focus on the development of major civilizations around the globe with a special interest in the political, economic, cultural and other ties between these civilizations.

A survey of the evolution of the United States from its colonial origins to the end of Reconstruction, this course explores the significant social, economic, intellectual, and political developments, including state history of Massachusetts.

A survey of the evolution of the United States from the late 19th century to the early 21st, this course explores the significant social, economic, intellectual, and political developments during “the American Age” of global history, including state history of Massachusetts.

This course provides an overview of American politics and government, focusing on Constitutional principles, national institutions of governance, and politics actors, such as political parties and the media.

This course covers the basic principles of behavior, that make up the foundation of psychology. Emphasis is placed on the biological basis of behavior, sensation, perception, learning, language, memory, thinking, infancy, and childhood. The methods of inquiry used in psychology are also emphasized.

This course presents fundamental concepts about the numeration system (decimals, fractions) including meanings, applications and operations. In addition, the fundamentals of Number Theory are presented. A major goal is to understand the concepts well enough to explain the ideas in a fundamental way making use of concrete examples. Open only to elementary education majors.

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