The ability to think critically and creatively are more in demand than ever before as our world becomes increasingly complex and as thinking skills continue to decline.  The MLA program that I oversee at Baker University seeks to engage students in a lifelong practice of critical, creative thinking that can immediately find application in their careers, communities and personal lives.  I can’t think of a better way to simultaneously spend several years exploring fascinating topics taught by passionate teachers AND gain the type of critical, creative thinking skills so desperately in need by industry, organizations, and our society.  As highly sensitive people it is incumbent on us to push our limitations, develop our capacities and engage our creativity in ways that allow for a fuller blossoming of potentialities in service to our often deep need for meaning in life.

I am very proud and humbled to lead this program as the chairman and I challenge any HSP considering a masters degree to consider this wonderful program.  We highly sensitive peoplee must move beyond the simplistic wrangling we so often see with simple descriptions of what it means to be an HSP and on to what it means to apply and embody it in a complex world.  In hindsight, the MLA at Baker University is the degree I WISH I had sought when I was in graduate school!

On a personal note the MLA program is one of the endeavors I engage with on a daily basis.  I teach in the program as well as lead and though it took many years to find a place in life where the challenges were sufficient and recuring (due my being a sensitive, sensation seeker) I feel a sense of placeness with this program that makes me think my contributions are meaningful, necessary, and generative beyond myself.  My path to teaching and administration (like the paths of many sensitive, sensation seekers) was unlikely and fraught with obstacles and setbacks but through resilience, perservance, and a belief that my capacities mattered I completed what became quite an organic journey.  The journey would have been much richer and fuller in the MLA program.              -Tracy Cooper