Two national organizations dedicated to the meaningful
delivery of university education issued a joint statement this week about the value of the liberal arts. The statement by these two organizations, the
American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the Association of
American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), is in response to a widespread
trend which shows a devaluing of the liberal arts in American society today. The
now common caricature and criticism of the liberal arts, particularly the idea
of majoring in a liberal arts discipline in the humanities such as philosophy,
history, theology, art, or English, is that they are not directly tied to
training for a specific career outcome. And as students are steered toward
other more clearly career-oriented majors that they can be sure will lead to a
specific job, liberal arts enrollments have declined. This has often led to
difficult decisions by university administrators to eliminate some liberal arts
majors. It has also led to decisions by state legislatures who fund higher
education about how to prioritize their limited funding. The result is a cycle
that in the end reflects a societal devaluation of liberal arts education.
But, as the AAC&U and AAUP statement points out, it has
long been known by employers that liberal arts are great preparation for many
careers since, rather than focusing on one narrow set of technical skills
(which may become irrelevant) the liberal arts prepare graduates with skills
they will use in any career. These skills include the ability to learn quickly
and learn on the job, a capacity for lifelong learning. They also include the
ability to think deeply and critically, to understand complex problems, to draw
on knowledge from a range of disciplines to solve problems, and to be creative
in approaching challenges. In addition the liberal arts foster the ability to
understand differing perspectives and, more importantly, people who have
differing perspectives. The liberal arts promote empathy along with an
understanding of culture and how it impacts individuals and groups.
All of those skills are more important in today’s society
than they ever have been. Thus, the promotion of the liberal arts can readily
be seen as needed for the sake of the public good. This shifts the focus from only
the single issue of an individual having the option to choose liberal education
to a broader issue: how to promote and foster what is needed for our society to
thrive and to overcome its current challenges. Career education and technical
training, as inherently valuable as those are, are not sufficient in
themselves. A liberal arts education has a strong claim to being equally
important for our world today, if not more so.
This week, in addition to being glad to see this joint
statement about the liberal arts, I also came across a now classic essay entitled “Only Connect” by William Cronon. This essay, from twenty years ago, described the ten
things that liberal arts enables people to do. The last was the phrase “only
connect” which suggests the ability to take the many parts of a liberal
education and make connections—between ideas, between events, as well as between people. I was
surprised to see at the end of Cronon’s essay that he linked the liberal arts
to one primary goal: love. A liberal arts education is not something one
undertakes only for oneself, although the value to an individual can be great
(see the salary surveys of liberal arts majors by mid-and late-career compared
to other majors). Instead, the thinking, skills, and values of a liberal arts education
provide one the perspective and motivation for service. Cronon wrote: “Liberal
education nurtures human freedom in the service of human community, which is to
say that in the end it celebrates love.” For Cronon, this is agape love, “the most powerful and generous form of human connection.” One need not look too far to find this notion rooted in the biblical ideals of love of God, the creator of the human
community, and love of neighbor.
For those of us committed to lifelong learning, our own as
well as that of our students, it is important to remember the value of what we
do, both its roots and its outcomes, for individuals and for society. And in the current climate, to be aware of
what may ultimately be at stake if liberal arts education continues to be
devalued.
