LSTD 5003 - Introduction to Graduate Interdisciplinary Studies (Online)

The present introductory seminar is designed to orient you to being a graduate student in a university. This, of course, is an extension of your previous college work as an undergraduate but there are significant differences. As a graduate student you will be expected to be more independent in your scholarship and to do work that shows more originality than was required as an undergraduate. You will learn to pursue knowledge on your own and to critically evaluate information as you discover it. In short, you will learn how to learn, how to think, and how to create. Some parts of this course will provide you with information. Other parts will help you develop skills. At the end, you will be prepared to make the most of the other courses and activities that are involved in the program.

LSTD 5013 - Interdisciplinary Foundations (Online)

All MLS students read and write reports on a series of interdisciplinary texts as common background for the MLS program.

The readings in this enrollment are designed to reinforce an interdisciplinary approach to graduate studies as well as lay the foundation for your interdisciplinary enrollments and future thesis or project research.

This course also serves to introduce paradigms, the underlying formulations which provide the structure for understanding and interpreting information.

LSTD 5123 - Strategic Planning and Evaluation in IHHS (Online)

An interdisciplinary inquiry into the concepts of strategic planning and evaluation in the human and health services organizational settings. This will include a study of the strategic planning, implementation skills, and the evaluation process; and of various models and approaches to designing and conducting strategic planning, including specific techniques for conducting environmental scans, SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats), strategic issue identification, and strategy formulation.

LSTD 5133 - Cultural, Social and Diversity Issues in IHHS (Online)

An interdisciplinary inquiry into cultural, social and other diversity issues that human and health services professionals will encounter in the process of providing services to their clients/patients. Exploration of how one's cultural and social environment impacts one's belief system. Successful delivery of service will depend upon the depth of understanding by personnel with regard to various belief systems.

LSTD 5153 - Ethics in Interprofessional Human and Health Services (Online)

An interdisciplinary inquiry into the nature of ethics, especially in the context of multicultural healthcare; the kinds of moral problems within this landscape and how rational thinking can guide ethical thought in ways that address the challenges in healthcare policy and reform.

LSTD 5523 - The World of a Museum (Online)

A museum is a very special place, a complex organization that may include almost as many connections with its community as a university or other major educational or private organization. Larger museums, whether free-standing or placed within a larger parent organization such as a university, may include: collection preservation centers; a research institute; K-12 and adult educational programs; formal university classes; public outreach with a very high profile in the immediate community or state; political interactions with the legislature or local government; staff management challenges; questions relating to the protection, handling, and legal considerations of sacred objects, endangered species, or human remains; parking lot management; park or reserve management; commercial activities such as gift shops, traveling exhibit rental, or space rental for special events; physical plant management; architectural and engineering considerations if a new building is being constructed or if building expansion occurs; fund raising at local, state, national and international levels, including contacting and cultivating major donors; budgetary management that may involve millions of dollars annually; various legal and ethical challenges related to the museums personnel, objects, programs, or research activities; and many other duties, obligations, and considerations that will challenge museum personnel during the course of their career.

This class is designed to prepare the students to meet the many challenges involved in operating a museum or in being an employee of a museum, and to understand how and why museum managers may act as they do as museums meet the daily challenges of the world of a museum. By successfully completing the course, the student will have a much better understanding of the complexity of the museum world and their place in that world. Moreover, they will be among the better-informed employees of any museum that hires them and will be able to adapt to new challenges and opportunities that may arise during their museum career.

LSTD 5553 - History and Architecture of the Museum (Online)

The course will explore the history and architecture of public museums, from the late eighteenth century to the present. First, we will focus on the founding of the Louvre museum, and then examine the classical model for the museum and museum building established in Europe and America in the nineteenth century and surviving into the twentieth with institutions such as National Gallery of Art. The course will then look at assaults on and the evolution of the classical model by, for instance, the Museum of Modern Art and the art museums of Louis I. Kahn. We will then survey the numerous building projects of recent decades. The course will conclude with an examination of the major issues involved when a museum plans an expansion, selects an architect, and determines the building program. The emphasis will be on art museums.

LSTD 5560 - Museum Project (Independent Study)

The project will enable the student to:

1. Demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between theory and application by successfully discussing this relationship in the concluding report..
2. Demonstrate the ability to formulate and/or carry out a specific museum project by successfully completing the described project.
3. Demonstrate the relationship between the specific project and broader museum goals and operations by successfully evaluating its effectiveness for museum operations.
4. Discuss the project within the context of the museum’s mission.
5. Interact with museum colleagues and other professional staff

LSTD 5560 Guidelines
LSTD 5560 Guidelines

LSTD 5563 - Museum Management and Leadership (Online)

Leading and managing museums is a real challenge. Museums are complex and multifaceted institutions. Among our oldest public enterprises, museums are the most popular, trusted, visible, and occasionally controversial. Based on collections of all types, their mission has evolved to include research, teaching, informal education, exhibition and dissemination of information. A wide variety of other benefits or “social capital” can be by-products of museums, including recreation, tourism, and community connection, safety, and stability. Typically, museums also are not-for-profit institutions with unique financial structures and diverse revenue streams. In a highly competitive, changing, and politically charged environment, museums have many different roles, responsibilities and expectations. To be successful, museum leaders and managers to must work together to create a shared vision, form a team of trusted staff and develop a management culture that shares an enthusiasm, energy and passion for the museum’s mission. They also must create a strategic business plan that keeps the museum financially sound and vigorous. They must show that their museums significantly increase the quality of life.

This course is designed for students to understand top quality museum administration and management and to meet the challenges of directing and operating successful museums.

LSTD 5570 - Special Problems in Museology (Online)

LSTD 5573 - Museum Culture (Online)

Museums and their collections no longer stand apart from the communities where they reside and serve. Increasingly, museums are called upon to interact with society in new and sometimes unexpected ways. This evolving role has revised the traditional mission of museums and has called for new approaches and partnerships designed to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse and often demanding audience. Successful interaction with the public through exhibitions, educational programming, board development and volunteer associations, not only strengthens the museum’s position of leadership within the community but also is key to gaining and maintaining the financial and moral support required for its very survival.

LSTD 5583 - Collection Management (Online)

In this course we will consider the place of collections in the life of the museum. Just as the types of museums are varied so is the nature of their collections. It is essential that the collections mesh with the goals and aspirations of the museum. For example, a science museum might have as its major purpose the active demonstration of scientific principles. An art museum might stress an aesthetic experience in which the object was paramount and the interpretation individual. A natural history museum might be a research institution as well as a place for educating and entertaining the public, so it would have a greater archival emphasis. As the general purposes of museums have changed throughout time, collections have taken on a different function, but one no less significant. In modern museums the interaction between the public and the collections is becoming increasingly important. Although in some quarters there is pressure to make the museum a sort of theme park, museums and galleries are still based in large part on their collections. Just as the numbers of museums have grown exponentially, so have the sizes of their collections. The increase in numbers underscores the necessity of developing appropriate accession and de-accession policies. Stewardship, that is the proper care of collections, involves record keeping as well as preservation and conservation.

We will relate theoretical ideas on collection development and maintenance to the actualities of museum situations. Although we recognize that different kinds of collections have unique requirements, most of the readings will be general, and will include principles common to all kinds of collections. However, the semester project will be specific to a museum selected by the student and will apply the general principles to a specific situation.

LSTD 5623 - Leadership Theories (Online)

The Master of Liberal Studies - Administrative Leadership program educates you for success in the 21st century by combining the broad elements of interdisciplinary study with an in-depth understanding of leadership. The very qualities that today's employers seek are those of leadership within the context of creative and flexible thinking.

Employees who not only understand concepts but can also expand upon them in a variety of new and exciting ways are the ones who will advance in their careers. Combining the knowledge of specific, work-related principles with the mind-set of a liberal education allows you to approach new ideas, projects, and challenges by drawing upon multiple perspectives.

Change is a constant in today's world, and the rewards will go to those individuals who are poised to meet new situations and career opportunities with speed, mental dexterity, and excellence.

LSTD 5633 - Cultures of Organizations (Online)

How you understand or explain a phenomenon -- whether it be a static thing like a painting, or a set of dynamic events, such as group behavior in an organization -- determines how you act. Your actions are then interpreted by many different people, and each will attach to it a unique explanation or interpretation.

In a group, perceptions and ways of seeing will tend to coalesce. Why? It certain is one way that nature makes order from chaos. But, there are other factors.

This course will help you understand these processes, and what implications they have for leadership.

LSTD 5643 - The Individual and Leadership (Online)

This course examines positive and negative aspects of leadership in terms of traits, behaviors, styles, personality function, situational variables, motivational factors, values, and self-understanding. Students will explore theories and research on others who function in leadership roles, as well as engage in their own self-analysis of key variables related to leadership. The coursework will facilitate the student's ability to be a more effective leader through greater self-awareness and through strategies to promote constructive relationships in groups or organizations.

LSTD 5653 - The Ethics of Leadership (Online)

In this course students will examine ethical dimensions of leadership from many perspectives and create case studies and a final project that apply the concepts learned in the course. Ethics, in the broadest sense, refers to how we relate to other people, animals, the environment, and ourselves in terms of what we should do. The study of ethics is more than just memorizing a moral code or religious doctrine, it enables the student to examine ethical problems from several important perspectives, adequately frame problems for optimal understanding, and practice ethical reasoning in developing practical solutions. These skills are essential in human life. The more honed an individual becomes in making good and ethically sound judgments, the more valuable they become in the decision-making process of any organization.

Leaders, by their nature, have great influence over groups of people and most often make decisions that determine the course of action of that group. The imperative for making sound ethical judgments and being able to read the ethical implications of a situation and possible outcomes accurately is a critical skill for the leader. Furthermore, leadership presents the individual with serious challenges in wielding power judiciously and without undue self-interest, maintaining more integrity in both public and private life, understanding the duties of leadership and of followers, trying to aim for the greatest good, and grasping the cultural limitation of their own upbringing. All of these characteristics, and more, coalesce into an effective and morally upstanding leader. Far from idealistic dogmatism, this form of understanding is dynamic, secular, and can be applied to different cultures with equal success, making allowances for differences in religion, cultural practices, and maintaining sensitivity to basic human rights and equality of opportunity. Ethics, taken in the way, is the cornerstone of leadership.

LSTD 5663 - Perspectives on Leadership (Online)

This course explores women leaders and their influence on their societies, as well as their contributions on a broader spectrum. Special attention is focused on how women leaders become change agents from different eras and what particular issues made them transformational leaders. The number of women leaders who have climbed to high level positions as heads of state, governmental bodies, administrators, and leaders of political parties and major organizations is limited. Successful women leaders are a diverse group and research shows they represent a wide range of varied and interesting personal, social, and political backgrounds. We are interested in studying their leadership patterns, finding out what they accomplished, and how their society was changed as a result of their transformational contributions.

Students are required to research information online and apply critical interdisciplinary perspectives to the topics in this course. Students are also expected to become familiar with transformational leadership principles in order to form a common base from which to launch their study of women leaders.

LSTD 5673 - LSTD Decision Making (Online)

This course is an interdisciplinary inquiry into the nature and attributes of poor management and leadership (also referred to as ‘stupidity,’ by author R. Sternberg and others in his anthology), consideration of a proposed theory of the attributes of ‘stupidity, and how ‘stupidity’ relates to human decisions and behavior. We explore from a cognitive psychology perspective the attributes of ‘stupidity’ and from an economist’s perspective the attributes of social decision-making and the unintended consequences of those decisions.

LSTD 5683 - Organizational Communications for Decision Making (Online)

Information management systems are a significant issue in today's organizational settings, both in military and private organizations. The significance of this issue can be seen in the success and/or failure of many organizations in their ability to adapt to external conditions. Organizations adapt to their external environment, or failing that, become ineffective and potentially dissolve. Organizations can no longer presume they will last forever, particularly when environmental changes occur at high speed. This course discusses the fundamental issues in the management of information, the ways people in organizations exchange information, and ultimately, how effective sharing of information leads to effective problem-solving.

LSTD 5693 - Project Management (Online)

The course focuses on a project for which a client wishes to find a solution. The client is a manager with responsibility for the problem area. The student selects the project and the client to use in this course. Typical projects might include: prepare a training, operation or maintenance manual for an activity of interest to the client; determine and evaluate several alternative solutions to a problem - increase readiness, improve response time, decrease cost, etc., or select an automated system for a task to improve the performance of a task. The class attempts to simulate as closely as possible the real-world experience of managing a project for a client. The client participates in the grading for the course.

Topics covered in the material include project planning, project evaluation, project control, project communication, client relations, performance oriented design, collecting information in the field, current operations analysis, specification for a proposed solution, devising and evaluating alternatives, implementation plans, report writing and presentation of the results.

LSTD 5790 - Advanced Topics in Interdisciplinary Study (Independent Study)

Intensive research on a topic related to the student's program of study; variable topics. May be repeated with change of content; maximum credit 9 hours.

LSTD 5890 - Investigative Interdisciplinary Studies (Independent Study)

Exploration of special issues and/or problems related to the student's program of study; variable content. May be repeated with change of content; maximum credit 9 hours.

LSTD 5903 - Research Methods (Online)

This class develops and expands the concepts introduced in Interdisciplinary Foundations. We will underscore the conceptual frames for thinking about inquiry and research. It will do this by exploring recent issues, theoretical approaches, and professional concerns specific to the area of study in which you will be doing research.

LSTD 5913 - Qualitative Research Methods in Interdisciplinary Studies (Online)

An interdisciplinary inquiry designed to acquaint students with qualitative research methods in interprofessional human and health services. The student will be familiar with the most common forms of qualitative research including how to design a study; ethical issues that must be recognized and appropriately addressed; and analysis of qualitative data.

LSTD 5960 - Directed Readings in Interdisciplinary Study (Independent Study)

An in-depth study of literature on a topic related to the student's program of study; variable content. May be repeated with change of content; maximum credit 9 hours