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Master of Arts in Humanities with Classical Education Concentration

Requirements

  1. Required Coursework: Fifteen credit hours of graduate-level courses are required. The following courses comprise the “core” of the Master of Arts in Humanities with Classical Education Concentration. Each course is three credit hours.
    • Trivium
    • Quadrivium
    • Philosophy of Education
    • Classical Pedagogy, Ancient and Modern
    • One of the Great Works courses (Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance/Baroque, or Modern)
  2. Elective Coursework: Fifteen credit hours of graduate-level elective courses from across the disciplines may be chosen. These include, but are not limited to, the following courses. Each course is three credit hours.
    • Additional Great Works Courses (Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance/Baroque, Modern)
    • Courses crafted specifically for our program in classical education, such as Master Teachers in the Western Tradition, History of Liberal Arts Education, Plato and Socratic Conversation, Augustine the Teacher, Aquinas on the Virtues, Teaching Great American Speeches, Teaching Classical Children’s Literature, etc.
    • With the graduate director’s approval, students may complete pertinent graduate-level courses from a variety of disciplines, including art, classics, drama, economics, education, English and other European literary traditions (French, German, Italian, or Spanish), history, politics, psychology, philosophy, and theology.
    • Practicum (apprenticeship) courses: Among their elective credit hours, students may choose to complete up to three practicum courses; students may complete one such three-credit practicum course per semester at a local classical school for a combined total of at most nine credit hours.
  3. Comprehensive Exam: Every student must successfully pass a comprehensive, written examination on a series of questions that will be prepared in advance and determined for each student on the basis of the curriculum pursued.
  4. Foreign Language Requirement: Before beginning the M.A. thesis, the candidate must demonstrate reading competency in either ancient Greek or Latin or modern Italian, French, or German. For any of these languages, the requirement may be met by completing a graduate level language course (approved by the graduate director) with a grade of B or above, or by passing an examination in translation. For modern languages, students may fulfill this requirement by passing the two-course, graduate-level “Reading Knowledge” sequence for the language (e.g., Italian for Reading Knowledge I, Italian for Reading Knowledge II).

    Please note that undergraduate-level courses, even when taken to develop reading proficiency in a foreign language, do not count toward degree completion. Graduate level foreign language courses may count toward degree completion as electives. As with all such electives, you should obtain guidance and approval from the graduate director.

  5. Thesis: While completing the thesis, students register for a six-credit thesis course. Well before registering for the course (at least one semester, but preferably two or more), the student must consult with an academic advisor to determine a suitable thesis topic and appropriate criteria, and then begin the research process in earnest. While the six-credit thesis course is completed in one semester, it is expected that the student will do a significant amount of preparatory work on the thesis before taking this course. For more information, contact your academic advisor. NB: The comprehensive examination must be completed prior to submitting a thesis proposal.

Texas State Alternative Teacher Certification

Interested students may complete the Alternative Teacher Certification program, at the elementary or secondary levels, alongside the Master of Arts or Master of Humanities with Classical Education Concentration. Please note, however, that in order to do so, students must be admitted into the Alternative Teacher Certification program separately (please see the Bulletin entry for the Alternative Teacher Certification program for details). Moreover, note that while it is possible to complete the Alternative Teacher Certification program plus the Master of Humanities with Classical Education Concentration with 36 credits, provided the student takes only the core requirements in both programs, combining Alternative Teacher Certification with the Master of Arts program will require at least 42 credits. Students who successfully acquire Texas State Teacher Certification may transfer their credential to states that have reciprocity agreements with Texas.

Apprenticeship/Practicum

An apprenticeship, or practicum, involves a mentored teaching experience and is conducted in conjunction with the student’s school of employment or homeschooling consortium. Students must find their own employment or consortium for the purposes of the apprenticeship/practicum.

Additional Stipulations

  1. Under normal circumstances, all program track requirements must be met within six years of a student’s initial registration in coursework, excluding leaves of absence.
  2. Regarding transfer credits, please refer to “Graduate School Policies” in the “Braniff Graduate School of Liberal Arts” section for pertinent information.
  3. University undergraduates may count Humanities Great Works courses as part of a Humanities graduate degree only if they have taken them at the 6000 level and have not counted them toward the undergraduate degree.
  4. Teachers in classical Catholic schools may, in consultation with their academic advisor, take courses in the Catholic Teacher Certificate program.
  5. Up to, but no more than, six credit hours taken at the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture may count toward the degree.

Long-Distance Learning

To accommodate the work and living situations of teachers and school administrators, we offer many courses online. All coursework in our degree and certificate programs can be completed entirely online. In addition, under normal circumstances we offer many of our core courses face-to-face on campus during the summer semesters. Room and board are available. Please contact classical_ed@udallas.edu for more details.