Read about our January
2005 seminar in Skidmore'salumni
magazine!
Students enroll in the program throughout the year—winter,
spring, summer, and fall. Most start with the required introductory
seminar, a weeklong intensive course held on the Skidmore
campus during January and July. Taught by a team of Skidmore
faculty drawn from different areas of the liberal arts, the
seminar introduces students to the power of interdisciplinary
study, prepares them for graduate-level scholarship, and connects
them to the wider MALS community.
Instead of surveying a collection of general topics, each
seminar explores a single topic from a range of different
angles, thereby modeling for students the interdisciplinary
approach that students will bring to their own studies. Past
seminars have examined topics ranging from weddings (through
literature, sociology, and visual art), to constitutional
theory (through political science, history, and linguistics),
to human landscapes (geology, history, philosophy). In so
doing, the seminar challenges students to draw connections
between the focus of their own course of study and the seminar’s
topic—to do the kind of thinking-by-analogy that the
master’s program values so highly.
Students complete the course readings before arriving on campus
and write a research paper during the month following the
class. Most students stay on campus during the seminar week,
and many of the most powerful aspects of the seminar experience
take place over lunch in the dining halls, by the picture
windows in Scribner Library, or while exploring downtown Saratoga.
During the seminar, each student meets with his or her advisors
to develop the plan of study that clarifies the theme organizing
the student’s curriculum and maps out the courses the
student will take.
After completing the on-campus introductory seminar, students
continue their programs of study without being in residence
at Skidmore, through a number of different modes of study.
Recent Introductory Seminars
“I remember receiving
my seminar’s reading list and fearing that I'd
be an academic woodchuck sitting among Einsteins. Instead,
I found a room filled with engaging, bright people with
a dazzling array of interests. I left the seminar knowing
that if I worked hard, I could really do this!”
Judy Burke, San Luis Obispo, CA
