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AUTHOR Breneman, David W. TITLE Are We Losing Our Liberal Arts Colleges? INSTITUTION American Association for Higher Education, Washington, D.C. PUB DATE Oct 90 NOTE 6p. AVAILABLE FROM American Association for Higher Education, 011e Dupont Circle, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20036-1110 ($3.50 each, 1-10 copies; $2.50 each, 11 or more copies). PUB TYPE Journal Articles (080) -- Reports - Research/Technical (143) JOURNAL CIT AAHE Bulletin; v43 n2 p3-6 Oct 1990

EDRS PRICE MF01/PC01 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Classification; Definations; Educational Change; *Educational Trends; Higher Education; *Institutional Mission; Institutional Role; *Liberal Arts; *Private Colleges; Professional Education; Role of Education; Trend Analysis

ABSTRACT Educational and economic criteria were developed to define a liberal arts college, and this definition was applied to the list of Liberal Arts I and Liberal Arts II colleges in the Carnegie Foundation classification. Educationally, liberal arts colleges were defined by the following criteria: they award the bachelor of arts degree; are residential; enroll full-time students in the age range of 18 to 24; and limit the number of majors to roughly 20 in the arts, humanities, languages, social sciences, and physical sciences. They rarely enroll more than 2,500 students, and they provide a pre-professional education. Economically, liberal arts colleges have comparable revenue and cost structures, with economic strugglesbeing a function of their offering a curriculum that does not cater to students' concer"s with the job market. Using these criteria, the list of 540 institutions classified as liberal arts was narrowed tc 212. The paper concludes that the liberal arts college is disappearing, and another type of institutionthe professional college--is taking its place. A list of the 212 liberal arts colleges meeting the criteria is provided. (JDD)

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BEST COPY AVAILABLE2 ARE WE LOSING OUR LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGES? by David W Brenernan

n the course of doing re- erwisecan inform their mission These categories include pri- search for a book on the fu- in ways not possible at state in- marily undergraduate colleges. ture of private liberal arts col- stitutions, while their small size Liberal Arts 1 colleges award more 1leges, I made a startling makes possible a sense of com- than half of their degrees in the discovery. While I began with the munity among students, faculty, arts and sciences. The Liberal Arts belief that there were roughly 600 and staff that can rarely be II colleges are less selective and such institutions in this country, achieved in larger settings. include a group that award fewer I have concluded that, given a rea- The diversity of American than half of their degrees in the sonable definition of a liberal arts higher education, one of its oft- arts and sciences but are too small college, we have only about 200 noted and much-v4lued attributes, to be considered what Carnegie of them left. will be much reduced if these describes as "Comprehensive." My discovery was as simple as small private colleges are unable I was intrigued, then, when Wil- it was disturbing: The liberal arts to sustain themselves and their liam Bowen, president of the Mel- college as we know it is disappear- mission because of changing eco lon Foundation, mentioned that ing from the landscape, and an- nomic circumstances. his work with the Carnegie clas other type of institutionthe pro- sification had convinced him that fessional collegeis taking its Defining Thrms the Liberal Arts II category was place. Furthermore, I believe that What is my definition of a liberal exceedingly heterogeneous, with most educators are not aware of arts college? In reality, when I many of these colleges looking this "sea change," nor have we began my research, I gave rela- more like "comprehensive" in- begun to debate its significance tively little thought t.o the group stitutions than liberal arts colleges. I think it's time for that debate of et:lieges to be included, for I Indeed, in Bowen's recent book, to begin. planned to use the Carnegie Foun- written with Julie Ann Sosa, dation classification of Liberal Artspects for Faculty in the Arts & A Unique Mission I and II colleges.' Sciences, the authors combined Among the nation's 3,400 col- the Liberal Arts Il category with leges and universities, only the the Comprehensive II category liberal arts colleges aie distin- to form a new group they labeled guished by a mission of providing "Other Four-Year Institutions.":' four-year baccalaureate education Subsequent reading and mi- ,e exclusively, in a setting that em- 7, merous conversations convinced phasizes and rewards good teach- me that I would have to develop ing above all else. my own definition and list of These colleges tend to enroll colleges. small numbers of students: they There were really two distinct emphasize liberal education over problems. First, a careful review professional training. They are of Carnegie's Liberal Arts II group the source of a disproportionate convinced me that there were sev- number of graduaws who go on eral colleges in that classification to earn doctorates and to pursue that rightly belonged in any study academic careers. of liberal arts colleges. Second. Their "privateness" means that there were some institutions in certain valuesreligious and oth the Liberal Arts I category that Davui W Breneman m a i)isitingseemed not to belong: they professor at the Harvard Graduateoffered graduate and professional This article is reprinted with per School qf Education and a visitingdegreesthey were small .fellow in economic studies at th.e mission from The College Board Re universities. view, No. 156, Summer 1990. 1990 Brookings Institutthn, Washington, by College Entrance Examination D.C. He was preside-nt of Kalama.zoo After further thought it soon

I Board, New York. College, Michigan, daring 1983-1989. became apparent mat liberal arts 3 AAHE BULLE'llN/OMBER 1990:3 BEST COPY AVAILABLE Liberal Arts Colleges: An Endangered Species? In deciding on what characterizes a liberal artscollege, I followed the Carnegie Foundation's classification of Liberal Arts I and11 colleges, supplemented with academic and financial criteria. liberal arts On the academic side, I divided degrees awarded into colleges might. be characterized awarded at least 40 and professional fields; I kept any college that in two ways: by their educational This weak criterion eliminated percent of its degrees in liberal arts. ideals and by their economic more than 300 Liberal Arts IIcolleges. colleges, excluding structure.' I used a financial criterion for Liberal Arts! Educationally, these colleges colleges that offered significant graduate or professional programs. award the bachelor of arts degree, (revenues and I wanted comparability of financial statements are residential, enrollfull-time program mayP:so expenditures), although a law school or an tviB.A students in the age range of 18 college. I eliminated alter the tone of an otherwise undergraduate to 24, and limit thenumber of ma- criterion. about ten Liberal Arts I colleges by this financial jors to roughly twenty in the arts, Alabama Georgia Kansas humanities, languages. social Liberal Arts I Liberal Arts I Liberal Arts I sciences, and physical sciences. Birmingham Southern Agnes Scott College Benedictine College College Oglethorpe University Liberal Arts il They rarely enroll more than 2.500 students; most enroll be. Liberal Arts II Liberal Arts II Bethel College Morehouse College tween 800 and 1,800. Judson College Piedmont College Kentucky The kind of education they pro- Miles College Shorter College Liberal Arts I vide might be described as pre- Spring Hill College Spelman College Centre College professional: Many students enroll Thomas More College Talladega College in graduate or professional pro- Liberal Arts II the Arkansas HaWaii Dansylvania University grams upon graduadon, but Liberal Arts I Liberal Arts II college itself offers virtually no HendrixCollege Hawaii Loa College Louisiana undergraduate professional Liberal Arts I education. California Centenary College of Economically. liberal arts col Liberal Arts I Liberal Arts I Louisiana Claremont. McKenna Augustana College leges have comparable revenue College Barat College Maine and cost structures. Their com- Mills College Blackburn College LiberalArts / mon economic struggle ispartly Occidental College Knox College Bates College a function of theiroffering a cur- Lake Forest College Pitzer College Bowdoin College riculum that does not cater to cur- Pomona College MacMurray College Colby College Scripps College rent student concerns withthe Westmont College Rockford College Maryland job market. While remaining true Wheaton Collego Liberal Arts II Liberal Arts I to an educational ideal,liberal arts California Baptist Liberal Arts II colleges must compete with uni- College Greenville College St. John's College versines that provide many more Christ College Washington College courses and majors, as well as a Judson College Western Maryland Christian Heritage vast array of professional degrees College College Mundelein College in fields such as business. engi Colorado North Park College Massachusetts neering, architecture. nursing. Liberal Arts I ninity College Liberal Arts I and education. Amherst College Colorado College And while it is easy to under Indiana College of the Holy stand the pressure on colleges to Connecticut Liberal Arts I Cross Liberal Arts I Emmanuel College shift away from offering liberal Earlham College Gordon College arts toward offering professional Thnity College Goshen College Hampshire College training, it is all the more impor Mount. Holyoke College Wesleyan University Hanover College tam to appreciate the fitiandal Wabash College Regis College Liberal Arts II Smith College constraints of liberal arts colleges Albertus Magnus Liberal Arts II Wellesley College t hat have not taken that way out. Franklin College of College Wheaton College Indiana Williams College District of Columbia Saint Mary's College Selection and Elimination Liberal Arts II Liberal Arts II Although it was not possible Thnity College Iowa Bradford College to adhere slavishly to theeduca Liberal Arts I Mount Ida College tional and economic criteria in Coe College Florida making my selections, the criteria Liberal Arts I Eckerd College Grinnell College did provide boundaries that nar Luther College rowed the original group of nearly Liberal Arts II Wartburg College Flagler College 600 insntutions to slightly more Palm Beach Atlantic 4 than 200. As such. the list should College give us pause about the changes

4/ AAHE BULLEI1N/OCIUBER 1390 Michigan North Carolina South Carolina Liberal Arts 1 Liberal Arts 1 Liberal Arts I Davidson College Furman University A!ma College Guilford College Libeval Arts II Hope College Salem College Claflin College Kalamazoo College Liberal Arts II Coke: College Liberal Arts II Barber-Scotia College Morris College Presbyterian College taking place in hie;her education. Concordia College Voorhees College (The list also has implications for Hillsdale College St, Andrew's Olivet College Presbyterian College )ublications such as US. News Warren Wilson College Unnessee World Report, which use the Minnesota Liberal Arts I Carnegie (lassifications for their Liberal Arts I North Dakota King College annual rankings of college Carleton College Liberal Arts II Rhodes College gaality.) Gustavus Adolphus Jamestown College University of the South College Liberal Arts II As liberal arts colleges evolve Macalester College Ohio in response to economic pres- Bethel College Saint John's University Liberal Arts I Bryan College sures, they lose their distinctive St, Olaf College College of Wooster Fisk University purpose. We should be thankful Denison University LeMoyne-Owen College that 20() of these colleges remain, Mississippi Kenyon College Maryville College Liberal Arts I Oberlin College and be vigilant that their number does not decline further. Liberal Arts II 'Ibxas Liberal Arts II Heidelberg College Liberal Arts I The list in the box (opposite) Ibugaloo College Hiram College Austin College presents my selection of 212 lib- Lourdes College Liberal Arts II eral arts colleges, organized by MisFouri Muskingum College Southwestern state and by Carnegie Foundation Liberal Arts II classification. Of the 140 private Westminster College University Wilberforce University Vermont Liberal Arts I colleges included Nebraska Wittenberg University in the 1987 Carnegie classification. Liberal Arts I Liberal Arts I I have retained 129; of the 400 pri- Nebraska Wesleyan Oregon Goddard College vate Liberal Arts Il colleges, I have University Liberal Arts / Marlboro College retained 83. ( As another index Liberal Arts II Reed College Middlebury College of change, it is worth noting that Dana College Liberal Arts II Liberal Arts II the 1070 Carnegie classification Warner Pacific College Vermont College New Hampshire listed 144 private Liberal Arts I Liberal Arts II Pennsylvania colleges and 545 private Liberal Virginia St. Anselm College Liberal Arts I Liberal Arts I Arts II colleges.) Hampden-Sydney Clearly most of my changes New Jersey Liberal Arts II College were in the Liberal Arts II cate- Chatham Cullege Hollins College Caldwell College gory. but before turning to that Randolph-Macon College group, a few words are in order New Mexico Franklin & Marshall Liberal Arts I Randolph-Macon about the Liberal Arts I category. College Woman's College St. John's College Gettysburg College Sweet Bria College Liberal Arts IIn general, the Haverford College New York Junia:a College Liberal Arts II colleges I excluded from this cat- Liberal Arts / Lafayette College Bridgewater College egory are thwe that might he Bard College Emory & Henry College thought of as *liberal arts plus-- Barnard College Muhlenberg College Mary Baldwin College essentially small universities. lb Colgate University Neumann College Roanoke College College ot Mount Saint Virginia Wesleyan give a few examples, Drew Uni- Swarthmore College Vincent Ursinus College College versity has a seminary and offers Hamilton College Washington &Jefferson several doctoral programs;Wil Hartwick College College Washington Hobart and William Liberal Arts I lamette University has both law Liberal Arts II Smith Colleges Whitman College and NI nAprograms; Lewis and Immaculata College Houghton College Clark enrolls several hundred West Virginia graduate students in several fields Marymount Manhattan Liberal Arts I Seton Hill College of study; Bucknell has a range of College Bea- any College Thiel College St. Lawrence University programs that go well beyond the Wilson College liberal arts, including a broad Wisconsin Liberal Arts I array of engineering majors; Ham- Beloit College line has a law school and a grad- Carroll College uate program in liberal arts. Lawrence University In addition to these Liberal Liberal Arts II Ripon College Arts I colleges that 1 have ex- Concordia College Liberal Arts II cluded. there are several private Long Island University Northland College institutions that Carnegie classifies Roberts Wesleyan College in its Comprehensive category that AAHE BULLETIN/OMBER 1990/5 think of themselves primarily as It should be noted that I also has is often lacking on campuses liberal arts colleges, for example, ran these degree statistics for the that have added professional Rollins, the University of Redlands, Liberal Arts I colleges, and a very programs. the University of Richmond, and different pattern emerged. Itventy- Whittier. While these institutions six of the colleges awarded no pro-A Sector in Peril are not liberal arts colleges by my fessional degrees, and thirty-one My conclusion from this inter- definition, the "comprehensive" more awarded less than 10 per- esting, but unexpected, part of my label also seems in error; it over- cent. Among those that awarded research is that the liberal arts states the case. The Carnegie 25 to 40 percent of their degrees college is in much greater peril Foundation might well consider in professional fields, business than I thought it was, but not be- a new category in its next revision and education accounted for most cause it is failing financially and to cover these small universities. of the numbers. (Six of the Liberalclosing its doors. Arts I colleges actually broke my Instead, it is surviving, but only Liberal 'tits II. But what of 60 percent criterion on profes- by changing and becoming sorne the more than 300 Liberal Arts sional degreesCarrol', Thomas thing elsefor want of a better Il colleges that I have excluded More, Wartburg, Rockford, Mount term, a small professional college. from my study? In general, I think St. Vincent, and Mac Murray.) Furthermore, I do not know of them as "liberal arts rninus," the time pattern of these changes, in the sense that they are essen Useful Information i.e., how many colleges shifted tally small professional colleges. Even within the presumably ho their curricular emphases within They have few liberal arts majors, mogeneous category of Liberal the last ten to fifteen years. A sep- but usually have a liberal arts core Arts I colleges, therefore, tremen- arate study examining the recent and tradition. The acid test that dous variety exivs in the nature history of this sector would be I applied in excluding colleges in of subjects studied, and I would most worthwhile, including the this category was the percentage argue that these statistics should forces that have brought about of degrees awarded in non-liberal be made available to students and change. arts fields. parents shopping for colleges. Perhaps there is no "good" al With help from the National In Michigan, for example, where ternative fcr many of these col- Center for Higher Education Man- I am most familiar with compe- leges as they struggle to survive agement Systems, in Boulder, Col. tition and admission overlap, the in a rapidly changing marketplace. orado, I arrayed each college's un- four colleges that many students Because of their valuable and dergraduate degrees awarded in and parents see as similarAlma, unique characteristics, though, 1985-1986, by liberal arts and pro- Albion, Hope, and Kalamazoo it will be a serious loss to the na fessional fields, with "professional"have the following percentages tion if this erosion continues defined to include business, en- of professional degrees awarded: among the 212 liberal arts colleges gineering. education, nursing, Alma-36 percent; Albion-41 per- that have survived. computer science, and agiiculture.cent; Hope-47 percent; and The colleges were then rank- Kalamazoo-2 percent. Notes ordered by the percentage of pro- I believe that these differences 1. Carnegie Foundation for the Ad vancement of Thaching..4 Classi fessional degrees they awarded. are every bit as significant, per- jicatwn qf Institutions qf Higher I eliminated any college that haps even more so. than compar- Education (Princeton: Princeton awarded more than 60 percent isons of averageSATor m-r scores. University Press, 1987), pp. 31-40. of its degrees in professional fields. Based on numerous campus 2. William G. Bowen and Julie Ann In other words, if a college visits I have made in recent years, Sosa, Prospects jar Faculty tu Arts & Sciences (Princeton. Prince awarded as little as 40 percent of I can attest that these curricular ton UniversitN Press. 1989), pp. 191 its degrees in the liberal arts, I differences do affect the campus 192. kept it on the Liberal Arts II list. atmosphere, the sense of corn 3. For the best discussion of this ed Only 83 of 400 colleges met even munity, the sense of shared values. ucational ideal with which I am fa that low measure. Where a separate business or en miliar. see Loren Pope, Looking Beyond the Ivy League (Penguin The more than 300 colleges, gineering faculty exists, for ex- Books, 1990). Pope. director of the which by Carnegie definition have ample, tensions arise over every- College Placement Bureau, has fewer than 1,500 students en- thing from salary differentials worked for years in helping famihes rolled, cannot plausibly be labeled among faculty members to the make informed college choices. "comprehensive" but should in sense of what is valued and 1 share the educational judgments that he advances in his book, and stead be viewed as small profes- stressed in presenting the college I think he would agree broadly with sional colleges. Again, a new cat- to the "outside world." The sense the distinctions among colleges egory is needed in the next of shared values and high morale that I am making, although I have Carnegie revision. that a good, small college usually not discussed the subject with him.

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