When John Clancy enrolled in the Master of Liberal Arts (MLA) Program in 1980, he had no idea it would lead him to a doctoral degree and a second career.
John J. Clancy, Ph.D., associate director of the American Culture Studies Program in Arts & Sciences and professor of engineering and technical management, is one of many students and faculty members who praise the program, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this month.
"The program has outstanding faculty, very knowledgeable teachers, and I met a lot of interesting fellow students," he said. "There is also the great variety of topics available since it goes across academic disciplines. I took a lot of different types of courses and enjoyed all of them. I took a course on birds, one on the 'Divine Comedy' and others on everything in between."
Clancy, formerly an engineer with McDonnell Douglas Corp., was introduced to the program by former University College Dean Robert C. Williams, Ph.D., who helped to develop it.
"When Bob told me about it, I thought, 'I've always read a lot and been interested in many things,'" Clancy said. "It later got me thinking about pursuing my Ph.D., which was not my goal going into the MLA program."
Williams, who is now a professor of history at Davidson College, N.C., speaks proudly of the almost 400 students who have been or are currently enrolled in the University's program.
"The persistence and flowering of the MLA program shows that St. Louis is full of intelligent people who did not stop learning when they received their other educational degrees," he said. "Our greatest tribute is to the men and women of the MLA who care enough to embark on a voyage of learning after hours, in addition to meeting their responsibilities to family and career. These students encourage us all to consider the liberal arts a lifetime adventure."
The graduate program, the only one of its kind in the St. Louis area, provides motivated, college-educated adults an opportunity to further their intellectual growth through a part-time interdisciplinary course of study. Core seminars of the program are organized into four categories: Ideas and Inquiry, The Creative Imagination, Science and Human Values, and Historical Understanding. To earn the MLA degree, students must complete nine courses (four from the core seminars) and a final independent project for a total of 30 units of graduate study. The program is jointly sponsored by University College and the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences.
The class environment is conducive to inquiry and discussion, the courses are varied and wide-ranging and the students are diverse in age, background and livelihood, but they share a joy of learning.
"The students are fascinating individuals," said Anne W. Hetlage, associate dean of University College in Arts & Sciences. "They love to deal with ideas and the written word -- either to read it, write it or both. They are broad thinkers. The program is not about just going in depth into one topic; it's how concepts in different disciplines relate to each other."
Students range in age from 25 to 80, Hetlage said.
"In some cases the students are older than the faculty and have experienced the events being discussed. It makes for exciting teaching," she observed.
Wayne Fields, Ph.D., the Lynne Cooper Harvey Distinguished Professor of English in Arts & Sciences and director of the American Culture Studies Program, is among the faculty that enjoy teaching courses in the program, not only for the interdisciplinary exploration, but because of the students.
"A lot of the appeal of it is that you have people with a wide range of experience and interests coming into the classroom. It brings different fields, faculty and students together," he said. "I've gotten to read a lot of good books with a lot of great people."
Williams perhaps described it best: "Adult students seem to me to validate faculty learning. The MLA program develops better teaching faculty willing to accept the challenge of bright, well-educated adult students who are working and paying for their own education. The faculty are perpetual adult students themselves. So there is great synergy."
George M. Pepe, Ph.D., director of the program and professor and chair of the Department of Classics in Arts & Sciences, taught one of the first courses in the program 20 years ago. He is teaching "The Legacy of Greece" this spring.
"The only changes I can see over the years is in those of us who are teaching. We've aged," he said with a chuckle. "The program is still as young as the students, who bring to it a lot of enthusiasm and vitality. They share a realization that their lives and careers can be enriched by the liberal arts. They have different occupations, some married, some with children, but they are all there because they want to be there, not to get their ticket punched."
There are now more than 100 such programs in the country, but Washington University's is among the oldest, preceded by Johns Hopkins, Georgetown, Harvard, Dartmouth, Southern Methodist University and several others.
Among the 175 graduates of the program are Lee M. Liberman, retired president and chief executive officer of Laclede Gas Co., who is now a Ph.D. candidate in American literature and history; William E. Cornelius, former chief executive officer of Union Electric Co.; and Tom Lowther, a law school alumnus and member of the executive committee of The Stolar Partnership, a downtown law firm. Liberman and Cornelius are members of the University's Board of Trustees, and Lowther serves as chairman of the University's Alumni Board of Governors.
Lowther, who earned his MLA degree in 1999, said he enrolled to broaden his vistas.
"I wanted to understand what I see in the museums and hear in the concert halls, to learn who built those Gothic masterpieces in France and Spain," he said.
In celebrating the anniversary of the program, the Saturday Seminar Series this month features current and past directors of the program -- Fields, Pepe, Williams and Gerald N. Izenberg, Ph.D., professor of history. For more information on the seminars, call 935-6778.
