Ken Adams and Patti Cleary, new graduates of the University of Delaware’s Master of Arts in Liberal Studies (MALS) program, have been awarded the Raymond A. Callahan Prize in recognition of their academic accomplishments.

First prize winner Adams’ thesis, “God, Mythology, Nationalism and Romanian Identity: The Post-Communist Transition to Democracy,” explores the connections between Romanian national and ethnic identity and religious tradition in Romania. He made numerous trips to Romania to conduct his research.

Cleary’s project, “I Remember Monika,” is a biographical study of Monika Kehoe, an educator and writer whose work examined aging and sexuality and who lived an unconventional life in the vanguard of homosexuality’s evolution to acceptance.

Cleary has had a proposal accepted to present a paper at the Association of Graduate Liberal Studies annual conference in October and was invited to write about Kehoe in The Journal Gazette of Fort Wayne, Indiana, Kehoe’s hometown.

The Raymond A. Callahan Prize is presented to honor a graduating MALS student who, in the opinion of the program faculty, best exemplifies the personal and academic attributes inspired by Callahan and that the program seeks to instill in its students. It especially recognizes the excellence of the recipient’s thesis or final project.

Callahan, now professor emeritus of history, taught at UD for 38 years and served as the first director of the MALS program and as associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. He held the John F. Morrison Chair of Military History at the U.S. Army's Command and General Staff College and is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

More about MALS

The Master of Arts in Liberal Studies is an interdisciplinary graduate program in which students can shape their curriculum to fit their intellectual interests and to follow their passions.

Courses are taught by faculty from across the College of Arts and Sciences and break down traditional departmental boundaries to explore important questions through a variety of perspectives.

MALS is under new leadership, with Tara White Kee recently named the program director.

Kee, a member of the first class accepted into the MALS program, received her master’s degree in 1992 and went on to earn a doctorate in history at UD in 2005. She previously worked in the University’s Division of Professional and Continuing Studies.