Integrated Liberal Studies/Meiklejohn Alumni Association
Formerly Meiklejohn Integrated Liberal Studies Association (MILSA)
Promotes the importance of a liberal education and the legacy of Alexander Meiklejohn.
Promotes the importance of a liberal education and the legacy of Alexander Meiklejohn.
About Us
MILSA was organized in October of 1998 by members of the Meiklejohn Education Association and the Integrated Liberal Studies Alumni Association. It is the descendent of the Meiklejohn Education Foundation, an organization comprised of alumni of the Alexander Meiklejohn's Experimental College, which was devoted to promoting liberal education around the world. MILSA strives to promote liberal education, the ILS Program, and the legacy of Alexander Meiklejohn.
MILSA became an official affiliate of the Wisconsin Alumni Association in February of 1999. Membership in MILSA is open to alumni of the Meiklejohn Experimental College and members of the former Meiklejohn Education Association; alumni of the Integrated Liberal Studies Program; faculty, students, and staff currently associated with ILS; and anyone who has an interest in forwarding the goals of the association.
Through a semi-annual newsletter, an annual convocation, outreach to high school students, and other special events, MILSA seeks to promote Integrated Liberal Studies, the ILS Program, and to carry on the legacy of Alexander Meiklejohn.
MILSA became an official affiliate of the Wisconsin Alumni Association in February of 1999. Membership in MILSA is open to alumni of the Meiklejohn Experimental College and members of the former Meiklejohn Education Association; alumni of the Integrated Liberal Studies Program; faculty, students, and staff currently associated with ILS; and anyone who has an interest in forwarding the goals of the association.
Through a semi-annual newsletter, an annual convocation, outreach to high school students, and other special events, MILSA seeks to promote Integrated Liberal Studies, the ILS Program, and to carry on the legacy of Alexander Meiklejohn.
The legacy of Alexander Meiklejohn ILS was established in 1948, making it one of the oldest continuous programs of its type in the country. ILS was inspired by the Experimental College, founded at the University of Wisconsin-Madison by Alexander Meiklejohn in 1927. The Experimental College was a "college within a college" that enrolled one-hundred and fifty-five students — all male — at its peak. Faculty and students shared dormitory living quarters. It had its own rules, six-week "modules" instead of semesters and no conventional grades.Meiklejohn was acclaimed outside the university for his experiment — he made the cover of TIME magazine — and most of his students warmly embraced Meiklejohn's vision.
But a separate college with separate policies for a special group of people was not popular among many on campus. In 1932, when budgets were cut as a result of the Depression, the college was abandoned. When ILS was established, it kept the Experimental College's emphasis on general, integrated education. But ILS students were governed by standard university regulations; the program was made a part of the College of Letters and Science; and faculty members were "borrowed" from existing departments.
ILS flourished until the mid-1960s, when most of the program's founding faculty reached retirement age. It was hard to replace them, partly because the faculty reward system was based in departments, not in interdisciplinary programs. Enrollment began with 300 freshman entrants in 1948 and peaked at four-hundred and fifteen in 1965, but then declined. By 1979, only one-hundred and sixty-eight students were enrolled during the first semester of their freshman year, and only seventy-nine the second semester. In 1979, the dean of Letters and Science, on advice from his faculty advisory committee, decided to terminate the program, citing declining enrollment, lack of faculty interest and lack of cohesiveness in the curriculum.
But a separate college with separate policies for a special group of people was not popular among many on campus. In 1932, when budgets were cut as a result of the Depression, the college was abandoned. When ILS was established, it kept the Experimental College's emphasis on general, integrated education. But ILS students were governed by standard university regulations; the program was made a part of the College of Letters and Science; and faculty members were "borrowed" from existing departments.
ILS flourished until the mid-1960s, when most of the program's founding faculty reached retirement age. It was hard to replace them, partly because the faculty reward system was based in departments, not in interdisciplinary programs. Enrollment began with 300 freshman entrants in 1948 and peaked at four-hundred and fifteen in 1965, but then declined. By 1979, only one-hundred and sixty-eight students were enrolled during the first semester of their freshman year, and only seventy-nine the second semester. In 1979, the dean of Letters and Science, on advice from his faculty advisory committee, decided to terminate the program, citing declining enrollment, lack of faculty interest and lack of cohesiveness in the curriculum.
The L&S Faculty Senate recommended that ILS be continued on an interim basis and be examined by a committee. The committee, including a number of interested faculty led by Professors Michael Hinden and Robert March, worked out a new ILS structure and reported its new recommendations in December 1980. A successful battle was fought to retain ILS in the L&S curriculum, where it has since enjoyed growing success for nearly two decades.
MILSA and ILS Today
Today, ILS is an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the basic subjects of the liberal arts curriculum. ILS offers a set of courses in the sciences, humanities and social sciences designed to meet the breadth requirements of the University for the B.A. Degree. ILS is also a flexible program. Some students make ILS the core of their freshman and sophomore studies. Others take ILS courses alongside their major throughout all four years of their undergraduate education.
In 1998, a group of Experimental College and ILS alumni, alongside current and former ILS faculty, created MILSA to further the goals of the ex-college and ILS. By forming an organization devoted to bringing ex-college and ILS alumni together, they hope to carry Alexander Meiklejohn's vision of lifetime liberal education into the twenty-first century.
In 1998, a group of Experimental College and ILS alumni, alongside current and former ILS faculty, created MILSA to further the goals of the ex-college and ILS. By forming an organization devoted to bringing ex-college and ILS alumni together, they hope to carry Alexander Meiklejohn's vision of lifetime liberal education into the twenty-first century.
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