The Association of Graduate Liberal Studies Programs (AGLSP) has named Susan Kamei, USC Dornsife associate dean for advanced and professional programs and director of the Master of Liberal Studies (MLS) Program, to its board of directors. Kamei will serve a three-year term from 2010 to 2013.

The AGLSP is an international organization of over 120 university and college members which offers graduate-level liberal education primarily for adult, part-time students. Founded in 1975, the AGLSP fosters high educational standards in graduate liberal studies programs and provides a forum for the exchange of information and ideas among programs, their students, their alumni, and other programs of related curricula and goals.

The USC MLS Program became an associate member of the AGLSP not long after the program’s launch in 2006 and became a full member in 2010 following a program evaluation and site review.

“We are delighted to have Susan Kamei join the AGLSP board,” said David Gitomer, president of the AGLSP and director of the Master of Arts degree in Liberal Studies and Interdisciplinary Studies programs at DePaul University. “The other board members and I have been impressed with the quality of the USC MLS program under her leadership and with her contributions to the Association. The USC program continues to be an active participant in the annual summer symposium jointly presented by west coast programs. We look forward to working with her and having the USC program represented on the board.”

“It’s a great honor for our program, relatively young as it is, to have our director named to the AGLSP board,” said James Kincaid, Aerol Arnold Chair in English, professor of English in USC Dornsife and chair of the MLS faculty board. “Susan has brought the benefits of the association to our program, through providing each student with a subscription of the association’s Confluence: The Journal of Graduate Liberal Studies, supporting student presentations at conferences and symposia, and creating an awareness that our MLS program is part of the larger graduate liberal studies academic community.”

The USC Dornsife Master of Liberal Studies program offers multidisciplinary evening seminar-style classes once a week designed for professional development or personal enrichment. To learn more about the MLS program, visit dornsife.usc.edu/mls, e-mail mls@college.usc.edu or call (213) 740-1349.