What is a Graduate Degree in Liberal Education?

St. John’s College believes that a genuine liberal education requires the study of great
books because they express most originally and most deeply the ideas that have shaped
our civilization. These books are our most important teachers. They are both timeless and
timely; they illuminate the persisting questions of human existence that bear directly on
the problems we face today. Their authors can speak to us as freshly as when they spoke
for the first time, because what they have to tell us regards our true interests and is not of
merely academic concern. The books change our minds, move our hearts, and touch our
spirits.

GRADUATE DEGREES OFFERED IN MARYLAND AND SANTA FE

The Graduate Institute offers three distinct degrees: a Master of Arts in Liberal Arts (MALA), a Master of Arts in Eastern Classics (MAEC), and a Liberal Arts Education Certificate. The MALA is offered on both campuses. The MAEC is offered on the Santa Fe campus only and the Liberal Arts Education Certificate is offered on the Annapolis campus only.

What Are the Great Books?

The great books are linked together: each is introduced, supported, or criticized by others. In that sense, they converse with one another. As readers we are drawn to take part in a great and continuing conversation. The books serve to foster thinking, not to dominate it. At St. John’s, the process of learning is not something passive and receptive, but rather active and cooperative.

All classes are conducted as a discussion where the responsibility for clarifying the readings, following through the thoughts, and testing the conclusions lies with the students and their tutors. The demands of the individual and those of the group are in continuous interplay, setting limits within which the discussion moves with the utmost freedom. Participants bring to the discussion the assumptions derived from experience in the contemporary world. Through discussion, however, they acquire a new perspective, enabling them to recognize both the sameness of a recurrent problem and the variety of its manifestations.

Even though specific areas of knowledge may advance or the fundamental outlook of humanity may change over time, the arts of understanding cultivated by a liberal education remain indispensable. These arts—thinking, speculating, imagining, analyzing—enable us to gain knowledge of our world and of ourselves and to use that knowledge with wisdom. Under their guidance, we can free ourselves from the blindness of prejudice and the narrowness of beaten paths. Under their discipline, we can acquire the habit of listening to reason.

View the St. John’s College Great Books Reading List

Why We Call Our Faculty “Tutors”

St. John’s faculty members are referred to as “tutors” rather than “professors” to signify that it is not their chief role to profess or lecture, but to guide students through the program of study. Most hold doctorates in particular fields, but all teach across the curriculum. Tutors shape discussion by asking questions, supplying examples, and encouraging students to explore the implications of their own statements. We work through difficult texts and ideas with the support of tutors, and ultimately arrive at the answers for ourselves.

Accreditation Information

St. John’s College in Annapolis is accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools; St. John’s in Santa Fe is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission and has state approval by the New Mexico Higher Education Department. For more information, visit the college’s Quick Facts page.