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Liberal Arts Education for a Global Society by Carol M Liberal Arts Education for a Global Society by Carol M. Barker 437 Madison Avenue • New York City, NY 10022 • 212-371-3200 • www.carnegie.org ©2000 Carnegie Corporation of New York 1 n the last third of the twentieth century, the to strengthen the liberal arts to better serve stu- United States produced a new model of higher dents in the new century. Ieducation, one that was more dyn-amic, inclu- sive and productive than ever before. Scholars have Participants at the Carnegie meeting were asked to advanced specialized knowledge on all fronts while consider a fundamental question: is it even possible such innovations as community colleges, standard- to conceive a coherent framework for what educat- ized testing, affirmative action, and financial aid ed people should know and be able to do in a have made higher education accessible to most world in which knowledge doubles every seven who seek it. years? How do you create teaching methods and materials responsive enough to adapt to the infor- These developments have taken place against a mation explosion of today and tomorrow and to widely held expectation that the goal of an under- meet the ever-increasing need to understand, even graduate liberal arts education is to provide stu- master, the new technologies that now affect dents with knowledge, values and skills that will almost every aspect of our lives? prepare them for active and effective participation in society. Drawing on this prototype, undergrad- Meeting participants wrestled with other key uate colleges in the U.S. have sought, with varying issues, including how to meet the needs and chal- degrees of commitment and success, to endow stu- lenge the minds of today’s undergraduate student dents with the capacity to learn, to reason, and to body—diverse not only in age, national origin, communicate with proficiency. This ideal of liberal socioeconomic status and cultural background, but arts education, tracing its history to ancient also in their preparation for higher education and Greece, historically responded to the challenge of in their aims in seeking advanced study. Is the creating a self-governing nation from many peoples mission of advancing knowledge through research living on a vast continent that cradled a vital, and scholarship compatible with the goal of active- multi-leveled and ever-changing civilization. ly engaging students in learning that prepares them for real life and real work? But is that challenge being met successfully today? At a November 10, 1999 meeting of educators Fortunately, the need to act and the opportunity to convened by Carnegie Corporation of New York to act creatively are converging today. Believing that consider the state of American liberal arts educa- the central teaching and learning mission of higher tion the answer in most cases, was no. But meet- education must and can be strengthened, Carnegie ing participants did identify a number of questions Corporation is presenting its first “Challenge that can spark further national discussion of how 2000” paper to launch a conversation on this sub- 2 ject. This essay shares the themes and directions from introductory to more advanced study through proposed at the November 10 meeting in order to electives and a major in the discipline of their broaden that discussion. choice. The Context for Change1. The first Amer- Following World War I, as the nation withdrew ican colleges, before and after the revolution, drew from the world and sought to restore order at on ancient and medieval sources and the tradition home, educators turned their attention again to the of Oxford and Cambridge to offer a substantially civic and social purposes of education. Some pro- prescribed curriculum of ancient classics, rhetoric, posed implementing a curriculum based in the mathematics, Christian ethics and philosophy to classic European tradition of the liberal arts, with develop leaders for the church and the learned pro- emphasis on close and critical study of great texts. fessions and citizens for the new nation. The The opposing view was rooted in American prag- preservation of learning and its transmission matism, and argued for an empirical and experi- through teaching to the next generation were the mental approach to education, engaging students main purposes of these small institutions. and teachers actively in the problems of a demo- cratic society. By the last third of the nineteenth century, higher education in the United States was responding to Interrupted by World War II, this debate was at the industrial revolution and the demands of a least temporarily resolved in favor of a model of developing nation and economy by expanding its undergraduate education derived from General purposes and creating new structures. Two new Education in A Free Society2, a report of a Harvard structures emerged. The research university, based University faculty committee, published in 1945 on a German model, had as its purpose the and familiarly known as “The Redbook.” This re- advancement of knowledge through graduate study port considered the problem of general education in and research. The land-grant university, a uniquely both schools and colleges in a society in which American institution, had as its purpose service to secondary education had become nearly universal the developing nation through practical research and needed to respond to a diverse student body. and instruction in agriculture and engineering. The aims of general education were to develop a Though undergraduate colleges survived, either capacity for critical inquiry and reflection through independently or as part of universities, the tradi- engagement with a shared culture based in the great tional liberal arts curriculum was supplanted by the ideas of Wes-tern civilization, now including science. modern disciplines of the arts and sciences. In place of a largely required and common set of The authors of the Redbook assumed that, as in courses, students were now expected to progress the past, higher education would continue to serve 3 perhaps no more than 20 percent of high school U.S. higher education today is an even larger and graduates, which narrowed their focus to the devel- more diverse enterprise — diverse in terms of the opment of an undergraduate education designed to student body and institutional type and purpose – meet the needs of this leadership group. But by than it was in 1963. Some changes need to be the fall of 1946, enrollment in higher education highlighted: had nearly doubled with the influx of veterans tak- • Enrollment in all of higher education expand- ing advantage of the G.I. Bill. In 1947-48, the ed by 40 percent from 1970 to 1994 with two- President’s Commission on Higher Education thirds of the enrollment growth in two-year issued a series of reports calling for a dramatic institutions granting associate of arts degrees, expansion and democratization of higher educa- primarily community colleges. In 1994, nearly tion. At the same time, the wartime investment in 43 percent of total enrollment was in the latter scientific research became a long-term postwar category.4 investment in the research capacity of higher edu- • Education beyond high school has become the cation, emphasizing work that was defense-related norm, with 65 percent of high school gradu- and biomedical in nature. ates aged 16-24 enrolled in college, compared to 47 percent in 1973.5 In 1963, Clark Kerr, then president of the Univ- • As access to higher education expanded, the ersity of California, delivered a series of lectures average level of academic preparation, as later published as The Uses of the University3 reflected in SAT and ACT scores and other which captured the dynamism of postwar higher measures, declined.6 education. Kerr foresaw that while the undergrad- • The percentage of students attending part uate college could co-exist with a dynamic, federal- time, working while attending full time, and ly supported research enterprise and service to state working more than 20 hours a week all and local communities, this equilibrium was a increased substantially, as did the proportion of shaky one. He correctly predicted that the research students 25 years of age and older.7 Note, enterprise would take priority over undergraduate however, that enrollment of students under 22 education and that the humanities would lose out has been increasing since the mid-1990s and is to science in the competition for resources. He also projected to increase significantly for the next identified challenges that remain to be addressed several years.8 today, including the improvement of undergradu- • Nearly three-quarters of freshman surveyed in ate education, the creation of a more unified intel- 1999 reported that the ability to get a good job lectual world, the reestablishment of institutional and to be able to make more money were very integrity, and the preservation of a margin of excel- important reasons for deciding to go to col- lence in a populist society. lege. Note also that 59 percent reported that 4 gaining a general education and appreciation of perspectives into the humanities, while invigor- ideas was a very important reason. Sixty-four ating, were also highly controversial and divi- percent of the students surveyed expected to sive, leading to even more fragmentation on major in a pre-professional or technical field campus. The natural and physical sciences, while 28 percent expected to major in a liberal social sciences, and the humanities inhabited arts field.9 separate intellectual worlds. • Pre-professional and technical education has • Approaches to general and liberal education expanded far faster than the liberal arts. In varied. Some institutions used required courses 1970, 50 percent of the baccalaureate degrees and content to engage students in critical think- granted in the United States – 396,000 – were ing. Other institutions focused on the major in a liberal arts discipline, including the sci- modes of inquiry, encouraging or requiring ences.
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