APRIL 15, 2013
A liberal, and liberating, education
Some years before I returned to my alma mater, St. John’s College, as president, one of my sons announced, “Dad, I will talk with you about my college choices, but I don’t want a liberal education, whatever that is.”
Christopher Nelson
This son had an interest in automobiles; his uncle was an auto mechanic, and we had a 1960s-something Volkswagen Bug with windshield wipers that didn’t work. With his uncle’s encouragement, this son undertook the challenge of fixing the wipers despite his lack of experience with cars.
After an hour of looking, testing, failing, questioning from his uncle, trying again, failing again and starting over, my son got fired up and excited. He finally discovered that the wipers didn’t work because they were powered by the air pressure in the spare tire—a tire that had since gone flat. He inflated the spare and, lo and behold, the wipers were restored to working order. I’ll never forget his triumphant shout at this act of self-discovery: “I got it!”
“You have now had an experience in liberal education,” I suggested to ears that were still deaf to the idea.
Why do I call this experience liberating? Because my son had to make do without the manual or the expert. He was led to find for himself the answer by a series of questions alone.
This is the utilitarian argument for a liberal education—the kind of education that employers want to see in their new recruits: an independence of mind and openness to engage in problem-solving with others across traditional disciplines; young women and men who can make their way in a world of innovation and change; and individuals who are liberated from boundaries rather than defined by them.
So if that is what we are up to in our nation’s liberal-arts colleges, why don’t we just offer courses in auto mechanics? We might do a lot of good in this, but we have also recognized that the free mechanic is a subset of the free human being. We have asked of ourselves not just what it takes to be a free mechanic but what it takes to be a free human being.
Do we understand what it means to be human in its many aspects? We are political, social and inquisitive beings, all at the same time. We think, weigh evidence and judge. We reflect upon the world around us; we wish to understand it, sometimes in order to make our way in it fruitfully, and sometimes just simply in awe of the universe’s grandeur. We have bodies, minds, hearts and souls. We have skills to make a living and provide for loved ones. We are members of civic, social and religious communities, and we are citizens of a great country. What are our duties and responsibilities? How well do we understand our powers and our limitations?
These are the kinds of questions we ask at a liberal-arts college. At St. John’s College, we have constructed a program of study to help our students cultivate the arts of analysis, argument and interpretation through the study of many of the greatest texts known to humankind. These studies enrich the imagination and nurture freedom of thought; freedom from the tyrannies of unexamined opinions, current fashions and inherited prejudices; and freedom to make intelligent choices concerning the means and ends of both public and private life. Our approach is guided by a love of wisdom that transcends the acquisition of information and even of knowledge narrowly conceived.
We want our students to be prepared to face any occasion for new learning that comes their way—to be better readers, writers, speakers and thinkers. We also want them to develop a lifelong commitment to pondering the question of how to live well. And finally, we want them to have the experience of living in a community of learning. We expect that the virtues we require of them in their lives on campus—consideration for their colleagues, and decent and respectful dealings with others—will prove transferable to their lives as citizens of this or any country, to their places of work and worship, and to their lives as friends and neighbors and members of a family.
At St. John’s and other liberal-arts colleges, learning is an activity fired by the desire to know, a desire to make one’s education one’s own. The reward for learning because one has a desire to know—simply for its own sake—is something I want to call “happiness.” This is not a fulfillment that comes to an end in the gratification of a desire, but an active engagement in an ongoing project that best defines what it means to be human.
Christopher Nelson is president of St. John’s College in Annapolis, Md., from which he graduated in 1970.
APRIL 9, 2013
Study backs liberal arts, but questions graduates’ competence
Firing back against intensifying attacks on the humanities, an association of liberal-arts colleges and universities has released a survey showing that employers want graduates with precisely their kinds of education, and announced a compact with CEOs to make sure they can continue to get it.
Saint Anselm College, a liberal arts college in New Hampshire.
The report, from the American Association of Colleges and Universities, or AAC&U, is meant to bolster support for institutions that emphasize the liberal arts in the face of criticism some fear may dilute the humanities or restrict them to elite private universities that only the rich will be able to afford.
But hidden deeper in the findings, and not mentioned in the accompanying news release, is the disclosure that more than 40 percent of employers already don’t think colleges are teaching students what they need to know to succeed. A third say graduates aren’t even qualified for entry-level work, and more than half say new hires with college degrees don’t have the skills they need to ultimately be promoted.
The AAC&U, whose 1,300 members are colleges and universities that offer what is now being called liberal education, says what students really need to succeed are not specific skills in narrow fields, but such abilities as reasoning, critical and creative thinking, problem-solving, and communication.
To back this up, the association released the results of a survey conducted in January of 318 corporate leaders, 93 percent of whom agreed that “a demonstrated capacity to think critically, communicate clearly, and solve complex problems” is more important than a job candidate’s undergraduate major.
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Three-quarters said they want more emphasis on critical thinking, problem-solving, written and oral communication, and applied knowledge. And 95 percent said they want new hires to demonstrate ethical judgment and integrity and the capacity to continue to learn.
The findings reinforce the results of previous focus groups conducted by the AAC&U. They follow public criticism from the governors of Florida, Wisconsin, and North Carolina, who are pushing for educations they say are more likely to lead to jobs, and who have questioned the value of humanities programs.
As the cost of college rises and the job market continues to sputter, students and their families are also more inclined to opt for majors they believe will give them a leg up. Only 8 percent of students now major in the humanities, according to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, down from a peak of more than 17 percent in 1967.
Other higher-education organizations have also raised concerns about this, including the Council of Independent Colleges, which in November began a “Campaign for the Liberal Arts.”
But the AAC&U survey also reveals deep skepticism on the part of employers about the job that colleges are already doing. Forty-four percent said they were not satisfied with the job colleges and universities are doing to prepare students for the workplace, a third didn’t think new hires were ready for even entry-level work, and 56 percent said graduates arrive without the skills they need to be promoted.
The AAC&U has launched what it calls the LEAP Employer-Educator Compact, named for an ongoing initiative called Liberal Education and America’s promise. It says more than 100 college presidents and 100 business and nonprofit leaders have pledged to support this kind of education and make sure students continue to have access to it.
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