"On a huge hill, cragged, and steep, truth stands and he that will reach her, about must and about must go.... "
-John Donne

What is a Degree in Liberal Studies?
In 1953, Wesleyan University began a venture in Master's-level graduate education that it called Liberal Studies. While other Master's degrees concentrated on a particular academic field or a profession, this new degree was distinguished by being at the graduate level and involving more than one academic discipline (interdisciplinary), with a foundation in the liberal arts and a schedule designed for working adults. The "liberal" motif recognized the traditional value of the liberal arts in enabling the mind to move freely in many spheres. Wesleyan's initiative was followed by others, including Dartmouth College, The Johns Hopkins University, St. John's College, Southern Methodist University, The University of Southern California, and The University of Oklahoma.

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Rationale for the Doctoral Degree
This is a non-traditional doctoral degree in several ways. The Doctor of Liberal Studies degree is interdisciplinary in nature. Rather than pursue academic grounding and theoretical research in a specific discipline in order to create new knowledge, DLS students synthesize existing knowledge from multiple disciplines in new and creative ways. The focus in this doctorate is upon individual students and their research area as described in their application. The Doctoral Thesis itself will synthesize and reconfigure existing knowledge in new ways, providing a substantive reinterpretation of the interaction of disciplines.

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Building on Success
The Georgetown University Liberal Studies Degree Program, given its long and distinguished record of success with the MALS, is distinctively positioned to offer non-traditional students the serious, substantive, and structured pursuit of knowledge that they seek. Expansion into the Doctor of Liberal Studies particularly fits the University and its current Liberal Studies Degree Program. In its over thirty years of operation at Georgetown University, the MALS degree has been awarded to over 1,400 non-traditional graduate students, most of whom still reside in the greater Washington, D.C. area. The degree operates under the academic aegis of Georgetown University’s School of Continuing Studies and the Graduate School.

Rationale for Required Courses
The foundational courses provide candidates for the DLS a shared and sustained examination of the theoretical and methodological assumptions that shape contemporary scholarship. They are designed to help students undertake their scholarly work in the degree program with a thorough understanding of the intellectual context in which scholarship and criticism, reading and research are currently carried out. This focus of the courses is two-fold and based on: (a) the insights and theories of major scholars, thinkers, and critics and (b) the methodological implications of those insights and theories. This dual focus enables students to understand how theory and method together shape not only the way in which research is carried out and presented, but also form fundamental assumptions about the goals and limitations of scholarship itself. An additional purpose of these required courses is to foster an academic and intellectual community among the students featuring on-going conversations and the interchange of alternative visions and perspectives.

Faculty
For over thirty years, Liberal Studies faculty teaching in this Program have been drawn from many of the University departments and programs, including philosophy, history, government, English, international affairs, classics, theology, science and its applications to human society, area studies, psychology, sociology, and the international and ethical dimensions of business. We will continue to draw these and additional faculty from the liberal arts departments in Georgetown University. Other Liberal Studies professors, with active careers in the arts, government, Foreign Service, and science, also serve as faculty members.

Administration
The Doctor of Liberal Studies degree is administered through the School of Continuing Studies in the Liberal Studies Degree Program that currently administers the MALS degree. Fourteen Core Faculty members provide faculty advisement. All academic policies regarding the Doctor of Liberal Studies degree originate with the Core Faculty of the Liberal Studies Degree Program and then are submitted to the Executive Committee of the DLS and the Dean of the School of Continuing Studies. Decisions affecting the academic content of the DLS degree program are subject to review by the Graduate School.

Executive Committee
The Chair of the Core Faculty chairs the Executive Committee of the DLS and nominates two additional members of the Core Faculty to serve on this Committee, who are appointed subject to the approval of the Dean. The term of service is three years. This three-person subcommittee of the Core Faculty provides final recommendations to the Dean on admission of new students. Other responsibilities for this Committee include appointing faculty to administer the Written Comprehensive Exam and appointing faculty to serve as the Doctoral Thesis Committee.