Mar 28, 2024  
University Catalog 2021-2022 
    
University Catalog 2021-2022 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

Liberal Studies, Arts and Literature Area Concentration, BA


Return to {$returnto_text} Return to: Programs By Location

BA in Liberal Studies: Arts & Literature
Location:
AU Seattle
Credits for Degree: 180 quarter credits
Standard Mode of Instruction: Classroom
Standard time to completion: 36 months

Program Overview

In line with the mission of Antioch University, the BA in Liberal Studies degree completion program is a 180-quarter-credit program built on principles of rigorous liberal arts education, lifelong learning and social responsibility. Guided by these principles, the curriculum places the student at the center of their learning process. Antioch offers a bachelor’s degree completion opportunity for self-directed learners ready to steer their own educational pathways.

Students come to AUS with backgrounds ranging from recent community college experience to students with up to 30 or more years of work and life experiences. Students in the BA in Liberal Studies Program may have accumulated college credits from other accredited institutions, from recognized testing processes, from military service, and/or from prior learning experience. From these diverse backgrounds, BA Liberal Studies students, with faculty guidance, design their own plans of study to round out liberal arts learning outcomes and focus on an area of personal and career interest.

The BA degree completion program is designed to meet learners where they are personally, professionally and academically. Antioch’s BA in Liberal Studies program is meant for the learner who is planning, among other things, to:

  • Change career directions
  • Get a promotion
  • Pursue a new job opportunity
  • Attend graduate school
  • Become a community or environmental activist
  • Launch one’s life dream/project
  • Experience the personal fulfillment of completing a bachelor’s degree

Many Antioch BA students are currently employed and have clear personal and professional goals. They are managers, artists, small business owners, social service workers, parents, community activists, military veterans, independent scholars and recent (or not-so-recent) graduates of community and technical colleges. Others are at early stages of their careers and want to explore ways to match their ideals with their studies and future work, especially with regard to social change and social justice.

All these students share:

  • A desire to shape their education to fit professional and personal goals
  • Interest in self-directed learning
  • Drive for a personally meaningful education
  • Strong motivation to enhance their professional and personal lives
  • Appreciation of the value of collaboration
  • Strong desire to make a significant contribution to society and create social change

Customization is Key

In the BA program, each study plan is based on the student’s past experience, current needs and interests, and future goals. Students work in close collaboration with faculty advisors, instructors and other students to shape their studies. Students build on earlier college work and on skills learned at home, at work, through independent reading and volunteer activities.

MA/Graduate Pathway (12 overlapping credits)

The MA pathway provides an accelerated route for qualified students in the BA in Liberal Studies Program to transition into a graduate program at Antioch University while completing their undergraduate coursework. The Pathway requires acceptance into an Antioch Master’s degree program, of which there are many options in Psychology and Education. Students apply to the MA program when they are within approximately 3-4 quarters of finishing their BA. If accepted into an MA program, the student launches into the first 12 credits of their graduate program while completing the BA in Liberal Studies degree.

Core Curriculum

A core curriculum in liberal studies supports students to design and successfully complete their bachelor’s degree. Students begin with a liberal studies seminar in which they explore the liberal arts in relation to their own interests, needs and goals. Throughout their time at Antioch, students also pursue liberal studies chosen from offerings both at Antioch and at other institutions. They study the diversity of the human community, evaluate and demonstrate their own personal academic strengths and work collaboratively with other students. They share the results of their own studies and express their creativity in peer group settings. All students do a project in the community during their time at Antioch. Students finish with a capstone project that brings various elements of their learning together into a coherent synthesis.

Areas of Academic Concentration

In consultation with their academic advisors, students create a concentration that is in many ways like a traditional academic major. The significant difference is that students help design the combination of courses that make up their area of concentration, creating a unique mix of lower and upper division, and interdisciplinary coursework. In this way, students develop an area of concentration around their intellectual interests and career goals, drawing on past or current passions to shape concentrations that prepare them for graduate study or future career changes.

Concentrations require a minimum 40 quarter credits of coursework, comprised of transfer courses, prior learning, Antioch courses, independent studies, service learning, internships, and other learning activities. Concentrations must include a minimum 3 credits of community-based learning, and a final, capstone/senior synthesis project.

Students choose concentrations in one of two ways: 1) Individualized Concentrations are created through a degree committee structure, where the student, an academic advisor and two community advisors guide the student to design learning activities to form a coherent plan of disciplinary or interdisciplinary study, named by the student. Or, 2) Students choose one of the several areas of concentration established by the BA faculty drawing from a curriculum designed specifically to support these fields of study. In either instance, the student develops a learning plan with advisor approval to fulfill the area of concentration requirement.

Optional Emphasis Areas (12 quarter credits minimum)

Students may elect an ‘emphasis’ of in-depth study within their area of concentration. These emphasis areas provide students with a specialized area of knowledge and skills. Emphasis areas are framed by the student, approved by the academic advisor, and must comprise at least 12 quarter credits that cohere around a central topic.

Arts and Literature Area of Concentration

The goal of the Arts and Literature concentration is to prepare students to work in fields such as writing, publishing, film, visual and performing arts, curating, and arts management. Arts and Literature is defined broadly to include art, theater, fiction and nonfiction writing and other forms of creative expression. While they often choose to focus on either creative writing or the visual and performing arts, students are required to engage in cross-disciplinary studies, including a critical understanding of creative expression across and within cultures, and in historical and contemporary contexts. They are encouraged to gain hands-on experience through internships, collaborations with local businesses or community art, history and literary organizations. The Arts and Literature concentration allows students flexibility to tailor their plans of study classes to particular interests. It also prepares students for graduate studies in a variety of fields.

Possible Coursework

  • American Family in Literature & Film
  • Literature of Protest
  • Literature for the new Millennium
  • Gender, Danger and Desire in Fairy Tales
  • LGBTQ Literature
  • Post-Colonial Literature & Theory
  • Pacific Voices: Asian American Literature
  • Global Lenses: Social Issues in Narrative Film
  • Poetry for an Age of Anxiety
  • Poetry as Medicine: Healing Narratives
  • Spoken Word: & Performance Poetry
  • Writing Short Stories
  • Writing Supernatural Narratives
  • Nature Writing in the Urban Wild
  • History of Color
  • Collage: Multi Media Experiments on Paper
  • Mural Painting
  • Socially Engaged Art
  • High Kitsch
  • Spectacular! Art & Distraction
  • Of Hands & Earth, Soul & Fire: Creative Expression in Clay
  • Gesture in Sculpture
  • Digital Self-Marketing

Sample Community-Based Learning Experiences:

  • Designed original logos and set up a website for a start-up
  • Work with nonprofits to create art, theatre and dance programs in local schools.

Sample Synthesis Projects:

  • Curated an art show
  • Completed the first draft of a science fiction novel
  • Staged a reading of one act of an original play
  • Painted a series of portraits

Current Tuition and Fees

University Tuition and Fees  

Return to {$returnto_text} Return to: Programs By Location