Iryna Sirota-Basso is a high school English teacher, pursuing her Doctor of Liberal Studies degree at Georgetown University.  Born in Odessa, Ukraine, she graduated from Odessa State University in 1997 with a MA in English Literature.  Iryna taught for eight years in Ukraine, and since 2007 has been a member of the English Department at the Academy of the Holy Cross, Kensington, MD.  In her doctoral thesis, Iryna is going to explore a transition from a postmodern towards the post postmodern worldview in Russian and Ukrainian culture.   

 

Pamela Carter-Birken’s Doctor of Liberal Studies degree was conferred by Georgetown University in 2013. While still a student in the Liberal Studies Program at Georgetown, her peer-reviewed article about interpretation in art museums appeared in Curator:  A Museum Journal. True to liberal studies sensibilities in scholarship, she has published in such diverse periodicals as Humanities, where she wrote about the history of the Denver rail station, and Social Work Today, where she discussed art programs designed for persons with special needs. Dr. Carter-Birken is at work on a book about Duncan Phillips, founder of the Phillips Collection, America’s first museum of modern art.

 

Jennifer Chutter is an alumna of Simon Fraser University Graduate Liberal Studies Program in Vancouver, Canada. Her predominate area of research is on home, domestic spaces and place-making. While she is gradually doing more of my research with an e-reader, there is nothing more comforting to her than an over-flowing bookshelf. A portion of this paper was presented at the AGLSP conference in October 2012 in Portland, Oregon.

 

Kristin Corr is an MLS student at SMU.  She is concentrating in The Arts and Human Rights.  She also has a BBA from The University of Oklahoma and an MBA from The University of Michigan.  She enjoys painting and sculpting, and has just begun to show her work in the last couple years.

 

Michael Counter, Jr., is a liberal studies scholar, interdisciplinary performer and poet whose creative works, original essays and articles focus on the intersections of race, sexuality and gender performance in marginalized lived experiences and pop culture. Counter earned his Master of Liberal Studies at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.

 

Marguerite Evans is a third year student in the Southern Methodist University Master of Liberal Studies program. She is concentrating her studies on persuasive writing and public speaking as well as creative writing. Marguerite has a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Waynesburg University and currently works in development at SMU. She has experience in marketing, sales, and writing for a regional auto body trade publication.

 

Rashad L. Givhan was born and raised in the Kansas City, Missouri, metropolitan area, but much of his writing is inspired by the countless summers he spent with his maternal grandparents in rural Southeast Arkansas.  Givhan’s writing explores ancestry, family lore, and the magical lives of everyday people.  He holds a BA in English, journalism, and public relations from Missouri Western State University and an MA in English (creative writing) from the University of Missouri at Kansas City.  He is currently a graduate student at Southern Methodist University’s MLS program in Dallas, Texas.  Givhan’s poetry has appeared in Bare Root Review, Black Magnolias, Callaloo, Kansas City Voices, Reverie, and Rougarou.

 

Hope Holz is perspicacious, empathetic, intuitive, and candid. She is also kind, but not always to herself. She is learning to define herself by who she is and not her acts or accomplishments—by adjectives, not verbs and nouns. But, since the preceding is not sufficient for a biographic blurb, she concedes the following.   Hope Holz lives in the Dallas area with her husband, a dog, and three cats. She holds a B.A. in English Literature from Texas A&M University and currently seeks her Master of Liberal Studies in Creative Writing and Literature from Southern Methodist University. She loves big words, and holds strong opinions on the Oxford comma. She hopes this final sentence of her biography will one day include her major publications as a writer of prose and poetry.
 

Zachary Michael Jack is a core faculty member in the Masters of Liberal Studies (MALS) program at North Central College in Naperville, IL, where he also teaches in the Masters of Leadership Studies (MLD) program. An associate professor of English, Jack serves on the faculty of four additional interdisciplinary undergraduate programs ranging from environmental studies to urban and suburban studies. 

 

Ronald Lee Jackson is Professor and Coordinator of Philosophy in the Department of Humanities at Clayton State University in Morrow, Georgia.  His interests and primary areas of teaching are philosophy of culture, ancient philosophy, ethics, aesthetics, and the intersection of continental and American philosophy.  Before turning to philosophy, he practiced law in California, representing migrant farm-workers. 

 

David Jones began the Master of Liberal Studies program at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida in 2015. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering and a Master’s degree in Environmental & Water Resources Engineering from Vanderbilt University, and is a registered professional engineer in Alabama and Florida. David has over 25 years of experience in environmental engineering, public health, preventive medicine and sustainability, including 21 years spent as an officer in the U.S. Army. He currently serves as an Environmental Programs Administrator with Orange County, Florida’s Environmental Protection Division. David is thoroughly enjoying the opportunity to pursue a liberal arts education even as his youngest daughter will be graduating from Rollins in May 2015.

 

Liu Liya is a senior in the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies program at Dartmouth College. Her track is Cultural Studies. The piece  submitted here is the first chapter of her graduation thesis. 

 

Terri Merz is presently enrolled as a part-time M.A.L.S. candidate in Georgetown University’s School of Continuing Studies, with Literature and Society as her discipline. After graduating from Georgetown University with a B.S. in French, she launched a career in book selling as the co-founder and co-owner of Chapters Literary Bookstore, which operated in downtown Washington, D.C. for over two decades and was renowned for its poetry readings and literary events. She returned to Georgetown University to pursue the M.A.L.S degree, and subsequently took a position as the Office Manager and Development Assistant at Promundo Global, an international NGO founded in Brazil and based in Washington, D.C. She is currently compiling The Promundo Anthology of Poetry, to reflect Promundo’s work for gender equity, and the countries where its research, programs, and advocacy are underway.

 

Emilie Mears graduated from Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida with a Bachelor’s in Humanities in 2012. She then received a Master of Liberal Studies degree from Rollins College in May 2015. During her Rollins College graduate studies, she presented the work “Dancing and Painting Modernism in America” at the October 2014 AGLSP Conference in Philadelphia. Her master’s thesis, “Educating for the Twenty-First Century: A Pragmatist’s View on the Dichotomy of STEM and Liberal Arts,” can be found in Rollins Scholarship Online, and she presented this work at the Summer Institute of American Philosophy (SIAP) June 2015 Conference in Dublin. She is currently a PhD in Literature student at Florida State University.  

 

Emmeline Miles is a student of the Masters of Liberal Studies program at Southern Methodist University.  Although born and raised in Texas, Emmeline acquired a Bachelor of Arts in English and Music from Scripps College in Claremont, CA.  When she is not constructing (hopefully) clever turns of phrase for graduate courses, Emmeline performs as an independent singer-songwriter.  Hear her music at http://www.emmelinemusic.com.

 

Peggy Ratcliffe Roe is a 2013 graduate of the Rice University Master of Liberal Studies program, Mrs. Roe also holds a master’s degree in Creative Writing and Literature from The University of Houston (1993) and a bachelor’s degree in Letters (with honors) from The University of Oklahoma (1966).  The author’s greatest academic interest is the humanities.

 

Dave Seter is currently enrolled in the MA in Humanities Program at Dominican University of California. He earned his undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering from Princeton University. His creative and critical works have appeared, and are forthcoming, in various journals including Evansville Review, Asheville Poetry Review, Paterson Literary Review, Cider Press Review, and Palaver. His poetry chapbook Night Duty was published in 2010 by Main Street Rag Publishing Company.