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WHAT YOU'LL GAIN
Program Outcomes
In the MLS program, students have the unique opportunity to hone communication, research and writing skills transferrable to any professional or academic field.
- Sharpen your critical thinking and analytical skills
- Engage with world-class Rice University faculty
- Enhance your understanding of interdisciplinary analysis and communication skills
- Develop the research methods needed to foster analytical and strategic mindsets
- Gain the opportunity to attain career advancement or prepare for further graduate study
- Grow with peers who are equally committed and energetic about exploring and learning
- Build your professional and personal network by joining our dedicated Alumni Community
- Add Rice to your resume
STUDENT JOURNEY
Coursework Progression
The MLS degree requires 12 courses for 34 credit hours. The multidisciplinary approach to your graduate education allows you to apply your life and professional experiences to develop new perspectives and understanding of the world.
FOUNDATIONS
All new students start the program by taking Introduction to Graduate Liberal Studies and three core courses, one of each in our three main academic disciplines: humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences.
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ELECTIVES
Once the foundational courses are complete, students may take their 6 elective courses in any of the subject areas offered.
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CAPSTONE
The final sequence of courses are the Capstone Seminar and Capstone course. These involve independent study where the student researches a multidisciplinary or creative project under the mentorship of two faculty members and presents their final project to the entire MLS community.
CURRICULUM SPOTLIGHT
What Students Are Learning
Courses vary each semester to support students' curiosity and interests.
Interested in previewing the Rice experience before you apply? Contact mls@rice.edu to learn how you can join MLS students for a day.
Evolution and Society
Dr. Scott Solomon
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Evolution and Society
MLSC 558
Credit Hours: 3
The science of evolution has come a long way since Charles Darwin first proposed his theory of how species change through natural selection in 1859. This course will provide an overview of modern evolutionary biology, with a focus on its relevance for 21st century society. This course provides an overview of the modern science of evolutionary biology, with a focus on the relevance of evolution for everyday life. Examples include the evolution of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, the controversy surrounding teaching evolution in schools, and the relationship between evolution and religion. Pre-class readings will provide background information for in-class discussions. Students will select one topic for further exploration, resulting in a written essay and an oral presentation to the class.
Scott Solomon, Ph.D., is a biologist and science writer based in Houston, TX. He received his doctorate in Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior from the University of Texas at Austin where his research examined the evolutionary basis of biological diversity in the Amazon Basin. He has worked as a visiting researcher with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC and the Universidade Estadual Paulista in Rio Claro, Brazil. Scott currently teaches ecology, evolutionary biology, and scientific communication as a Professor in the Practice at Rice University. He also speaks and writes about science for the general public. Scott’s writing and photography have appeared in publications such as Slate, Nautilus, Aeon, and Wired.com and his first book, Future Humans: Inside the Science of Our Continuing Evolution was published by Yale University Press in October, 2016.
Foresight in Social Justice
Dr. Richard Baker
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Foresight in Social Justice
MLSC 569
Credit Hours: 3
Foresight in Social Justice will explore and analyze social justice issues, and then suggest positive action for social change. This course introduces students to future studies research, enabling individuals to spot emerging opportunities and threats within the context of social justice and develop innovative responses to serve changing needs. Foresight in Social Justice is a course that challenges students to engage in the process of identifying and evaluating major issues, trends and uncertainties impacting social justice in the future and exploring potential societal implications that can drive sustainable innovation. Students will provide a final project, written and oral presentation, related to how they would use current trends to impact social justice in the future.
Richard Baker, Ph.D. - Dr. Richard Anthony Baker’s involvement in diversity and equal opportunity matters spans more than 20 years. Starting as a student then as entry-level staff, Dr. Baker has worked at every level of equal opportunity compliance. He eventually became the chief equal opportunity officer for the third-largest university system in Texas. After serving in that role for eight years, Dr. Baker transitioned to Rice University in August 2019 and became the Executive Director for Institutional Equity, EO/AA, and Title IX. In this role, Dr. Baker’s responsibilities include assessing the University’s diversity management effectiveness, specifically in the area of recruitment and retention of diverse personnel. Dr. Baker’s responsibilities also include overseeing the University’s anti-discrimination initiatives, including authoring and enforcing policies, procedures, practices, and other institutional strategies aimed at eliminating disparate treatment and impact on its community. In addition to providing high-level strategic guidance on equal opportunity matters, Dr. Baker conducts formal investigations of individual complaints and systemic reviews of allegations of discrimination. In order to prevent these events from occurring, Dr. Baker provides anti-discrimination training for thousands of employees and students and presents on the topic of equal opportunity and Title IX at academic conferences throughout the country. Additionally, Dr. Baker is the President of the Board for the American Association for Access, Equity, and Diversity (AAAED) which is the oldest operating national association serving equal opportunity professionals.
Dr. Baker has the distinction of being the first African-American to obtain a doctorate of jurisprudence and graduate degrees in Public Administration (M.P.A.) and Higher Education (Ph.D.) from Texas Tech University.
Biblical Ethics
Dr. Matthias Henze
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Biblical Ethics
MLSC 572
Credit Hours: 3
Biblical Ethics is a course on what the Bible has to say about some of the major moral issues of our time. Many pundits today claim that they know what biblical ethics are, when, in fact, only few of them care to read the Bible, let alone read it critically. The absence of biblical literacy and the unwillingness to engage the Bible critically become especially problematic in the context of our current debates on a range of moral issues. In this class we examine both. We will read a variety of biblical texts and familiarize ourselves with the authors’ ethical and moral positions. Only then will we be in a position to discuss which role, if any, the Bible should play in our contemporary debates. To examine the ethics within the Bible is essentially a historical-critical task. It investigates what the Bible meant in ancient times when the texts were written. The attempt to articulate an ethics of the Bible is a modern enterprise driven by our own questions. It asks what the Bible means today. The former is descriptive. It observes and describes what we learn from our historical-critical reading of the Bible. The latter is prescriptive. It examines how such a critical reading in the context of our contemporary moral debates might inform our moral reasoning.
Matthias Henze, Ph.D, is the Watt J. and Lilly G. Jackson Professor in Biblical Studies and Founding Director of the Program in Jewish Studies at Rice University, where he has taught since 1997. His areas of interest are broad and include the Hebrew Bible, Judaism of the Second Temple period, apocalyptic literature, Syriac language and literature, and the Qumran fragments. In particular, he is interested in those early texts that never became part of the Jewish Bible - the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha - and what we can learn when these texts are read side by side with the canonical writings. Dr. Henze has written and edited nine books and currently he is at work on a critical commentary on Second Baruch. Dr. Henze is the 2009 and 2010 recipient of the George R. Brown Award for Superior Teaching and the 2003 Rice University Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Prize. He holds a Ph.D. from Harvard’s Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations.
Creative Nonfiction
Dr. Deborah Barrett
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Creative Nonfiction
MLSC 617
Credit Hours: 3
Creative nonfiction takes many forms, including expository writing, personal essay, narrative story-telling, literary journalism, memoir, nature and science writing, travel and food writing, historical narrative, biographical narrative, and academic and cultural criticism. This course is designed to help students read and write creative nonfiction with a focus on the voice, structure, messages, style, and technique found in contemporary creative nonfiction. The material covered applies to the humanities, the social sciences, and the sciences.
The course will include critical reading and discussion of modern and contemporary essays specifically selected to demonstrate the breadth of the genre coupled with writing exercises and the respectful criticism of peer work in a workshop format. In addition, we will look at publishing creative nonfiction, including selecting the publication, understanding the process, and editing of their work. Students will turn in short essays to be read and critiqued by their peers throughout the semester and develop and turn in a portfolio as the final project for the course.
Deborah Barrett, Ph.D. is a professor in the practice of writing and communication at Rice University where she teaches graduate courses in creative writing and literature. She was awarded the John Freeman Faculty Teaching Award in 2019 for her work in the GLS Program, which she joined as faculty in 2009. She served as the director of MBA communication at the Jones School and director of the Program for Communication Excellence for Rice undergraduates after joining the Rice faculty in 1998. She has a Ph.D. in English from Rice and has published scholarly articles on literature, communication, and leadership and a textbook, Leadership Communication (McGraw-Hill). She has participated in several major writing conferences, including the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conferences for creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry. She has published several creative nonfiction essays as Deborah Burch-Lavis and published a chapbook of poetry, The Desert Speaks to the Dreamer (Finishing Line Press, 2019). Currently, she participates in poetry workshops with the Circle of Wise Women at Stanford University, and is working on publishing her novel. You can read some of her creative writing and see her photography at https://www.mydeborahbarrett.com and see some of her academic publications and presentations at https://scholarship.rice.edu.
Women in Southern Literature
Dr. Deborah Barrett
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Women in Southern Literature
MLSC 560
Credit Hours: 3
This course will consist of reading and discussing the history of women in the South and the major writers from Southern literature, focusing on women writers. The readings will include the works of the following women writers: Kate Chopin, Zora Neale Hurston, Caroline Gordon, Katherine Anne Porter, Eudora Welty, Harper Lee, Carson McCullers, Flannery O'Connor, Alice Walker, Anne Tyler, Maya Angelou, and Bobbie Ann Mason, but it will also include selections from prominent male authors, such as Thomas Wolfe, Tennessee Williams, William Faulkner, and Truman Capote.
Students will conduct a historical and literary analysis of the texts and learn to apply different approaches to reading and understanding literature, such as historical, sociological, and psychological, in addition to learning how narrative techniques, point of view, and character reveal the history and the major themes of the works.
Deborah Barrett, Ph.D. is a professor in the practice of writing and communication at Rice University where she teaches graduate courses in creative writing and literature. She was awarded the John Freeman Faculty Teaching Award in 2019 for her work in the GLS Program, which she joined as faculty in 2009. She served as the director of MBA communication at the Jones School and director of the Program for Communication Excellence for Rice undergraduates after joining the Rice faculty in 1998. She has a Ph.D. in English from Rice and has published scholarly articles on literature, communication, and leadership and a textbook, Leadership Communication (McGraw-Hill). She has participated in several major writing conferences, including the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conferences for creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry. She has published several creative nonfiction essays as Deborah Burch-Lavis and published a chapbook of poetry, The Desert Speaks to the Dreamer (Finishing Line Press, 2019). Currently, she participates in poetry workshops with the Circle of Wise Women at Stanford University, and is working on publishing her novel. You can read some of her creative writing and see her photography at https://www.mydeborahbarrett.com and see some of her academic publications and presentations at https://scholarship.rice.edu.
Intellectual Foundations of American Law
Justice Evelyn Keyes
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Intellectual Foundations of American Law
MLSC 578
Credit Hours: 3
This course will trace the development and interaction of the two great concepts of law and justice in Anglo-American legal, political, and social theory with respect to the individual and the state up to the present day. Readings will include primary legal and philosophical texts only. We will read what some of the greatest minds in the Western political tradition—particularly the Anglo-American tradition—have thought about the natural condition of man, the justification for a state, the rule of law, the concept of a constitution, and the structure of the institutions and laws of the state to achieve the ends of justice and the common good. We will begin with the foundations of political and legal philosophy in Plato and Aristotle. We will then study the theory of the social contract, the foundations of the common law system, and the constitutional republic in England and the United States. We will explore what legal reason is and contemporary theories of how it should be used to analyze and decide cases justly and to further the common good. If time permits, we may summarize and analyze great constitutional issues as presented in the earliest landmark Supreme Court cases of Chief Justice Marshall.
Justice Keyes was appointed to the First Court of Appeals by Governor Rick Perry in May 2002. She was elected in November 2002 and re-elected to six-year terms in 2004, 2010, and 2016. She retired at the end of 2020. Before joining the First Court, Justice Keyes was a partner in Clements, O'Neill, Pierce, Wilson, and Fulkerson, L.L.P., practicing complex civil litigation. She also served as a Special Assistant Attorney General to then Texas Attorney General John Cornyn. She has also served on several law-related boards and committees and has published articles in law and philosophy. Prior to receiving her law degree, Justice Keyes earned an M.A. and Ph.D. in philosophy from Rice University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in English from the University of Texas. She received her B.A. from Sophie Newcomb College, Tulane University, magna cum laude, with honors in English. Justice Keyes teaches legal philosophy at Rice University as Professor in the Practice. She and her husband have four adult children and seven grandchildren.
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