Ethics and Public Service Curriculum

The Ethics and Public Service program combines ethics with knowledge about how to help the public understand the increasingly complex world of policy and choice concerning key issues of our time.

The Master of Arts in Liberal Studies curriculum consists of 11 courses.  The program contains four coordinated components:  (1) a core of three courses, (2) a set of five emphasis courses, (3) two elective courses, and (4) a master’s project or thesis.

Core Courses
MLS 506 Ethics in Contexts
MLS 590 Public Discourse
MLD 683 Leadership for Social Change

Emphasis Courses
MLS 560 Introduction to Public Policy and the Legal Process
MLS 562 The U.S. Health care System and Patient Advocacy
MLS 564 Ethics, Public Interest Groups, and the Political Process
MLS 566 Culture, Place, and Policy
MLS 660 Environmental Economics

Required
MLS 695 or 696 Project or Thesis

Recommended Elective Courses
EDN 521 Schools and Their Institutional/Political Environment
ENG 555 Professional and Grant Writing
MLD 558 Conflict Resolution
MLS 512 Religion, Ritual, and Symbol
MLS 530 The City
MLS 534 Gender in Public Life and the Professions
MLS 540 Writing Life Stories
MLS 550 Ethics and Imagination
MLS 632 Race, Ethnicity, and the American Experience
MLS 648 The Social Consequences of New Media
MLS 680 Justice, Care, and Community
Any course from the “History of Science” sequence
Choose one
MLS 510 Changing Models of the Universe: Plato to Kepler
MLS 610 From Certainty to Chaos
MLS 612 Changing Concepts of the Earth and Life