Mesa State College and the Liberal Arts Tradition

Some Questions:

• 1. Why did you decide to come to college?

• 2. What will a college degree mean for you?

• 3. What do you think the term “Liberal Arts” means?

• 4. Why did you choose a “liberal arts college” instead of a technical or vocational school?

Definitions• LIBERAL – Adjective• Main Entry: 1lib·er·al

Pronunciation: 'li-b(&-)r&lEtymology: Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin liberalis suitable for a freeman, generous, from liber free; perhaps akin to Old English lEodan to grow, Greek eleutheros free1 a : of, relating to, or based on the liberal arts <liberal education> b archaic : of or befitting a man of free birth2 a : marked by generosity : OPENHANDED <a liberal giver> b : given or provided in a generous and openhanded way <a liberal meal> c : AMPLE, FULL3 obsolete : lacking moral restraint : LICENTIOUS4 : not literal or strict : LOOSE <a liberal translation>5 : BROAD-MINDED; especially : not bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy, or traditional forms6 a : of, favoring, or based upon the principles of liberalism b capitalized : of or constituting a political party advocating or associated with the principles of political liberalism; especially : of or constituting a political party in the United Kingdom associated with ideals of individual especially economic freedom, greater individual participation in government, and constitutional, political, and administrative reforms designed to secure these objectives

• Liberal – Noun• Main Entry: 2liberal

Function: nounDate: 1820: a person who is liberal: as a : one who is open-minded or not strict in the observance of orthodox, traditional, or established forms or ways b capitalized : a member or supporter of a liberal political party c : an advocate or adherent of liberalism especially in individual rights

• Liberal Arts• Main Entry: liberal arts

Function: noun pluralDate: 14th century1 : the medieval studies comprising the trivium and quadrivium2 : the studies (as language, philosophy, history, literature, abstract science) in a college or university intended to provide chiefly general knowledge and to develop the general intellectual capacities (as reason and judgment) as opposed to professional or vocational skills.

So, . . .

• To educate people in the liberal arts tradition is not to train them in a particular skill or trade or discipline, but to create in them a habit of thought or a frame of mind.

• That frame of mind is characterized by pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, and by “an effort to cultivate a discriminating sympathy, to combine a capacity for appreciation with the critical spirit” (Jackson Lears).

So What?

• Based on these definitions, what do you think the primary purpose of a Liberal Arts College should be?

• What should be the connection between Liberal Arts Colleges and Universities and Business or Industry?

• In the 50’s colleges became known as “Knowledge Factories.” How does this appellation either fit into or oppose the idea of the Liberal Arts?”

Inside/Outside the Box

• There must be a place in our society where people are encouraged to think outside the box of business, commerce, capitalism, jobs, pursuit of wealth, practicality, in order for us to advance as a society.

For example . . .

• Paul Berg, the Nobel Prize winning scientist who laid the critical foundations for splicing DNA molecules that lead to the creation of the first recombinant DNA clones observes that

“The biotech revolution itself would not have happened had the whole thing been left up

to industry. Venture-capital people steered clear of anything that didn’t have obvious commercial value or short-term impact. They didn’t fund the basic research that made biotechnology possible.”

What’s the goal, then, of a Liberal Arts Education?

• As Marshall Gregory, a professor of English at Butler University put it . . .

“I never seen a student who really wanted a job fail to get one after graduation, regardless of his or her major . . . But, I have seen many students fail to get an education because they were fixated on the fiction that one particular major or another held the magical key to financial success for the rest of their lives.”

Some Big Words

• Ontogeny -- the development or course of development especially of an individual organism.

• Phylogeny -- the evolution of a genetically related group of organisms as distinguished from the development of the individual organism.

• The liberal arts tradition insists that these two are integral to each other, that educating individuals means linking individual learning to public life and social relationships.

Educating Citizens

• According to this philosophy, then, the purpose of schools goes beyond educating individuals to educating citizens.

• “Schools must develop the freedom and human capacities of individuals, but individual powers must be linked to democracy in the sense that social betterment must be the necessary consequence of individual flourishing.”

– Henry Giroux

“Liberal education is the pursuit of human excellence, not the pursuit of excellent salaries. . . Liberal education is not even about excellent intellectual achievements. Its goal is more ethical than intellectual; it focuses on the development of individuals as moral agents.”

Marshall Gregory

Liberal Arts and HistoryLessons we can apply today

Discussions about the values of a liberal arts education aren’t new. After WWII, liberal arts institutions were feeling a little battered as well.

As a society, we had to decide how to pick up our lives after the war was over. Educators began to offer ideas about the ways that a Liberal Arts Education could help people prepare for peace.

The American Council for Education

• Claimed that “the skills of the technologies will not begin to solve the problems of a post-war world, ‘that men and women must be disciplined and educated through the arts and humanities to seek truth, that civilizations cannot expand, or even exist, unless the generations to come understand moral values.”

• A leading educator stated that “the Hitler heresies are confirming us anew in the belief that attention to technology must not lead our nation to neglect the values of the will and the spirit to which a liberal arts education is directed.”

How can we prepare for peace?

• This is the question one educator, Colonel H. F. Harding asked. His answer was that the “weapons of peace” are “philosophical concepts based on understanding, respect, and moral values. . . The formula for peace is understanding . . . Peace and ethics go hand in hand.”

Good world citizens

Harding concluded his speech by calling for young persons, who would be the determiners of policy in the future, “who will have the task of making the peace take root and grow” to learn the histories and literatures and languages of people around the globe so that they could meet and work with others in the spirit of friendship and understanding.

• This is exactly the kind of knowledge that is at the heart of a liberal arts education.

• Liberal Arts institutions should be dedicated to educating individuals to meet their highest potential, so that they can contribute to the greater social good.

Winston Churchill’s Plea• In a speech concerning the world’s future after the

war, Churchill said that hope for the future rested among the educated. “I hope our education will become broader and more liberal. Facilities for advanced education must be evened out and multiplied. Nobody who can take advantage of higher education should be denied the chance. You cannot conduct a modern community except with an adequate supply of persons upon whose education, whether humanitarian, technical, or scientific, much time and money has been spent.”

Liberal Arts

• The question is not “Can the Liberal Arts Tradition survive?” but rather “Can this whirling [21st] century world long survive without the liberal arts?”

– Colonel H. F. Harding