MCLA To Add Two New Majors In Fall 2008
NORTH ADAMS – Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA) has announced that the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education on Wednesday unanimously approved two new Bachelor of Arts degree programs in art and in political science and public policy.According to MCLA Art Professor Gregory Scheckler, the new art major differs from art programs at other state colleges not only because advanced students can design their own pathway through the program, but because of the regional arts scene, which includes Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) and the Clark.
“We started building on this kind of program in the fall of 2000, incrementally increasing our arts courses and offerings until we could support an arts management degree, MCLA Gallery 51 and now the new art degree,” Scheckler said. “The combinations are very exciting because as students learn to master their craft in the art major, they can also learn the best of business savvy in the arts management program by double-majoring or minoring. The art major is an important building block towards the college’s larger goals of creating new programs with unique emphases and possibilities that link with the Berkshires.”
Scheckler said the program will facilitate students to enter careers as creative innovators. Courses will include those in a wide array of media such as drawing, painting, graphic design, photography, film, broadcast communications, computer graphics and costume design.
Robert Bence, MCLA political science professor, said the political science and public policy major will combine liberal arts skills with vocational experience, as well as interaction within the field of public policy. He said the Berkshires offer many advantages for students of politics and public policies. This includes the revitalization of North Adams and similar public/private collaborations in other parts of Berkshire County which serve as laboratories for students.
Bence expects students in this program will network with officials in government agencies, those in the private sector who create and implement policy, as well as with court officials and elected leaders involved in policy creation and evaluation.
“In this program, students will have a chance to apply their classroom knowledge and skills through internships and real-life applications,” Bence said. “We’ve been looking at a political science major for a long time, but we decided we wanted to provide a unique offering and one that provides a vocational focus. We also believe that adding public policy to political science gives it a unique academic focus.”
MCLA consistently sends interns to Washington, D.C. through the Washington Center and also can provide students with internships in the Canadian House of Commons and overseas study in a variety of nations. For the past several years, MCLA has sent teams of students to the North American Model U.N. in Toronto.
Courses will include those in United States government and public policy, international relations, American history, modern civilization, politics and news media, constitutional law, public administration, macro economics, and social science research.
For more information, go to www.mcla.edu.
