MY VIEW

ROBERT SHOENBERG How Not to Defend

I OCCASIONALLY LOOK IN ON AND Web sites to see what they are telling the public, particularly prospective and current undergraduates and their families. On a recent such visit to the Web site of a leading liberal arts college, I came across an article reproduced from the college’s alumni maga- zine that brought me up short. If this is how we defend the liberal arts and liberal , I thought, the future of the enterprise is indeed in trouble. The article begins with an epigraph from George Will: “The term ‘liberal arts’ connotes a certain elevation above utilitarian concerns. Yet liberal edu- cation is intensely useful.” While I can give total and enthusiastic assent the second sentence, the two taken together reflect a classic confusion between liberal education and the liberal arts. The two terms are not synonymous. “Lib- eral arts” refers to certain subjects of study, which may be pursued to many pos- sible ends. “Liberal education” may be pursued through any subject matter, but the term implies distinct purposes: breadth of awareness and apprecia- tion, clarity and precision of thought and communication, critical analysis,

MY VIEW honing of moral and ethical sensibilities. Thus an education in the liberal arts and sciences disciplines is not, by definition, a liberal education. Study exclusively in the liberal arts disciplines does not guarantee a liberal education. Indeed, An education in many liberal arts majors are as narrowly specialized as any professional pro- gram. Conversely, many career-specific programs are insistent on liberal the liberal arts learning. For instance, the accrediting standards of ABET (Accrediting and sciences Board for Engineering and Technology) are equally divided between profes- disciplines is not, sional content and liberal education. by definition, a Meanwhile, the “open curriculum” espoused by several liberal arts leaves the door open for students to pursue a narrow education. A particular liberal education peeve of mine is the absence in such curricula of any insistence that students pursue studies in science. In an age when all citizens are called on daily to evaluate arguments and make decisions in their personal and civic capacities that require some understanding of the sciences, a college’s failure to ensure that its graduates have some appropriate grounding in these fields is educa- tional malpractice. Classically defined, the artes liberales are the studies pur- sued by free men and women. If humanity cannot make informed collective decisions about such topics as energy, the environment, or public health, then we will not have many free people left to study the liberal arts.

Do liberal arts colleges “own” liberal education? That magazine article I found online proceeds by describing the decreasing number of liberal arts colleges, defined as institutions awarding more than half their bachelor’s degrees in those fields. The piece notes that as the number of collegegoers has increased, the percentage of undergraduate degrees awarded

ROBERT SHOENBERG is senior fellow at the Association of American Colleges and

56 L IBERAL E DUCATION W INTER 2009 Liberal Arts Colleges

Bates College MY VIEW Messiah College 8L 58 cation, givinglittlethoughttothepurposes axiomatic thattheyareofferingaliberaledu- faculties ofmanyliberalartscollegestakeitas arts college.Atthesametime,Ifindthat through—that woulddocredittoanyliberal purpose—on whichtheyactuallyfollow highly intentionalstatementsofeducational providing aliberaleducation.Manyhave me egory convinces institutions outsidetheliberalarts whatever studiestheypursue. education theyaregettingin joring, butratherwhatkindof fields ofstudystudentsarema- The questionisnotinwhat these dataarebesidethepoint! But fields collectivelyhasnot. number ofdegreesinthose clined—although theactual in theliberalartshasde- My experiencewithmany IBERAL E DUCATION of theirseriousnessabout W INTER 2009 college cat- (and oftheliberal liberal education) should be toward should betoward human dilemmas liberal education arts whenthey arts The thrust of The thrust are part ofa part are addressing addressing marily totheapparatusoftheirowndisciplines. are committedtoliberallearningandnotpri- best preparationforwork,citizenship,and complexity anddiversityoftheworld,is communicative powersandasenseofthe purposefully designedtodevelopcriticaland tion intheliberalarts,aneducationthatis I amintotalagreementthataliberaleduca- The utilityofaliberaleducation happen onlyiffacultymembers eral education.Butthatwill students willactuallygetalib- that thelikelihood increases dition toliberaleducation exclusively committedbytra- graduate educationatacollege teaching intheclassroom. and howtheyareactually and practicaleffectofwhat I grantthatpursuinganunder- for a satisfying life. The article in that liberal or business administration—is most properly arts college alumni magazine that got me directed toward the future of the individual thinking about all of this cites the director of and society. We lead students to study the past an aerospace company who claims that, in for the wisdom and insight to be found there hiring, “I’ll always go for the philosophy ma- so that it can inform present and future deci- jor. They know nothing about aerospace, but sions. But the thrust of liberal education (and MY VIEW they know all about complexity—and that’s of the liberal arts when they are part of a lib- what I need.” I applaud such insight and only eral education) should be toward addressing wish that the people this executive sends out human dilemmas: those that we have always to do his recruiting had the same understand- faced because we are human, those that loom ing of the utility of a liberal education, wher- large now, and those we can anticipate. ever its locus in the curriculum. I am the product of a liberal arts college. I What we are–and are not–about attended during a time when its faculty was as I trust any college wishes to give its students clear as it could be about its intention to give the qualities of intellect and heart to live a re- students a liberal education. That intention sponsible and satisfying life. Perhaps liberal arts was clearly reflected in the curriculum, which colleges preeminently achieve that purpose— was designed first and foremost to sharpen the or perhaps not. But they do not exclusively intellectual skills we would find indispensable achieve it. The notion that liberal education wherever we were. It was a utilitarian educa- goes on in only 8 percent of colleges enrolling tion in the broadest sense, directed toward en- 4 percent of students suggests that an educa- hancing our usefulness to our communities, tion thus oriented requires special pleading to our workplaces, and ourselves. justify it. It reflects an isolation from the rest of This experience makes me impatient with that is often self-imposed and the argument that the distinctive educational only reinforces the unfair accusation that such role of a liberal arts college is to “offer students colleges are elitist and increasingly irrelevant. the past.” This view seems both mistaken and Any competent perverse. History, cultural anthropology, and requires a constant battle to disabuse youth of the arts certainly do that. Philosophy and liter- its perennial insistence that what is of the mo- ature used to and maybe still do sometimes. ment is all that matters. That struggle is, if de- But science and most social sciences? What creasingly, the pedagogical bread and butter of do most scientists know of the origins of the some of the liberal arts disciplines. However, concepts and hypotheses with which they equating a liberal education with the study work? Are psychology or sociology faculties of the liberal arts and insisting that such an concerned that students know the history of education is to be found today only in those their disciplines or the application of their colleges whose hallmark is a focus on the past disciplines to the past? does not much help the cause of either the But regardless of various disciplines’ orien- liberal arts or liberal education. ■ tation to the past, the value of a liberal educa- tion—whether pursued in a liberal arts college To respond to this article, e-mail [email protected], or a and whether through with the author’s name on the subject line. the study of literature or architecture, biology

PHOTO CREDITS

Cover, 20, 45, 47, 48–49, 54: Page 23: College of William Page 51: Bentley College, Frostburg State University and Mary, photographer photographer Brian Smith Stephen Salpukas Pages 6–7, 8, 9, 10–11, 26: 52–53: Bentley College, Clark University Page 25: Bentley College, photographer Len Rubenstein photographer Dan Courter Pages 14–15, 31, 33: Page 57: , photog- University of Southern Maine Pages 36–37, 38–39, 41: rapher Phyllis Graber Jensen Worcester Polytechnic Institute Page 58: Messiah College

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