Statistics of the Program

Student profile

• Total candidates: Between 525 and 600, on average
• Age range: 22 to 77, the median age is 38
• Gender: 51 percent male, 49 percent female
• Geographical range: Over 30 states and 10 foreign countries are currently represented
• Five largest fields of concentration: government, psychology, English, international relations, and biology

Thesis topics

Students in the ALM program have an opportunity to explore myriad topics with experts from a diverse range of academic specialties. Below are a few examples of the theses students have written to complete their degrees.

Anthropology and archaeology

• Stealing Clothes, Inciting Murder: Rwandan Women and Their Fatal Alliances during the 1994 Genocide
• Leader of Serpents, the Fall of the Eagle: The Map of Cuauhtinchan No. 2 as the Script of a Play

Biological sciences

• Effects of Global Warming and Local Habitat Change on the Winter Distribution of Birds in Western/Central Massachusetts
• Determining the Role of Pancreatic Progenitor Cell Number on Final Pancreas Size

Dramatic arts

• Subversion and (Un)containment: Homoeroticism in Twelfth Night, The Merchant of Venice, and The Two Gentlemen of Verona

English

• Henry James and the French Aristocracy Under the Napoleonic Code: Madame de Vionnet and a Contextual Reading of The Ambassadors
• A Post-Modern Autobiographical Mode: Alice Munro’s First-Person Short Stories

Foreign literature, language, and culture

• That Vertiginous Feeling: A Brief Survey of the Uncanny-Marvelous or the Marvelous-Uncanny in “Fantastic” Literature
• De-Exoticizing Haruki Murakami’s Global Grand Slam

Government

• The Endogenous Constituents within the Socialist Party that Fomented the September 1973 Chilean Coup
• US Immigration Policy: Implications for US Competitiveness in Attracting and Retaining Foreign Talent

History

• Albert Cameron Burrage: An Allegiance to Boston’s Elite through a Lifetime of Political, Business, and Social Reform, 1859–1931
• Grand Inquests and Great Offences: An Inquiry into the Meaning of “High Crimes and Misdemeanors” in Presidential Impeachment

Psychology

• Attention and Concept Formation in Socially Impaired Children
• Gender Differences in the Long-Term Psychological Impact of Industrial Struggle

Religion

• Character Education in America’s Public and Private Schools: A Case Study
• Breaking Bread: The Gospels and the End of Poverty

Visual arts

• Interiority and Alienation in Childe Hassam’s “Window Paintings” (History of Art and Architecture)
• “Exploring the Border Between Form and Chaos”: Photojournalism’s Intersection with Latin American Magic Realist Literature in Alex Webb’s Vision of the Tropics (Studio Arts and Film)
• Apotropaism and Influence: The Symbolic Power of the Dwarf in Ancient Roman Art (Classical Civilizations)

After the ALM degree

After graduating from the Master of Liberal Arts program, students are prepared to pursue new professions, advance their careers, go on to other graduate programs, or publish works in their fields. The following are examples of the existing careers of candidates and the graduate programs to which alumni have gone.

Careers