For two centuries, liberal arts colleges across our nation have provided students with a life-changing education centered on the values that will sustain them for a lifetime. They have focused on the growth of the whole person and on the development of a whole life. It worked in the 1800s. It worked in the 1900s. But does it work in the 2000s?
Many are pessimistic. The naysayers point to a myriad of problems that needs new solutions.
Our children's test scores are falling behind other countries, they say. The global political climate is unsettled and violent. Our government lives beyond its means. Our schools are failing. America is falling behind. College is too expensive.
Indeed, we face problems. But that's not new. We always, seemingly, stand at the brink of a precipice.
Those of us who trumpet the small college, liberal arts approach are quick to defend our values. We maintain that a liberal arts education is deeply rooted in helping to solve the practical problems of society. As we prepare students who have the breadth of training that a liberal education demands, we help them to discover how they will use that knowledge to serve, and to improve, society.
These core vitals, held dear for decades and centuries, are still vital. However, liberal arts colleges cannot be satisfied with simply being what they have been. I am suggesting that our greatest opportunity is to re-imagine what the liberal arts college can be for our society and for the world.
What must such a re-imagining entail? Among the things we must pursue:
If liberal arts institutions are to achieve these goals, we will need to go about our work differently. We will, each of us, need to take on an entrepreneurial spirit that, for many, is not the hallmark of the academy. We must become institutions for a new century of challenges and opportunities, a dynamic model of the habits and practices upon which a sustainable and compassionate community depends. We have the opportunity to be the community that we are preparing our graduates to help create when they leave us.
In the late middle ages, the liberal arts underwent their first great transformation--Inclusion of the humanities, and in the late 17th century, they were juggled again, to include strong doses of Calculus and Newtonian Physics.
I'm looking at UPenn catalogues from 1750 through 1878, and the curricula were virtually unchanged--Lots of Greek and Latin Language in addition to the aforementioned subjects. There were no majors, and virtually no electives.
And then Science and Engineering became all the rage...And the Liberal Arts reinvented themselves to make themselves more relevant--By shedding the Math and Hard Sciences, and focusing on softer, less quantifiable subjects...And buy doing so, sacrificed the rigor that once was claimed sharpen minds.
I think the Liberal Arts could use a transformation...And a bit more rigor.