liberal arts

While societal observers, particularly those involved with higher education, castigate liberal arts education as being passe, Inside Higher Ed published a piece last week by Mary Marcy, provost and vice president of Bard College that made the opposite argument.

Marcy's thesis regarding the gap between conventional wisdom and actual student attitudes rests on two legs: 1.) Liberal arts education IS conducive to a job search, and 2.) Liberal arts education matches students' desire for a well-rounded college experience.

There are likely two reasons for this gap between conventional wisdom and student decision making. The first is that the separation of liberal arts education from employment is simply unfounded. Employers consistently say that they want to hire graduates who can write and speak clearly, who are innovative and critical thinkers, and who are sophisticated and comfortable with diversity. While not exclusively the domain of liberal education, these traits are certainly cultivated in a liberal arts environment.

The second probable reason for the persistence of the liberal arts is the focus of students themselves. Today’s traditional college age population is more globally-minded, less interested in work as a means only to material success, more willing to find middle ground on issues that typically lead to bi-modal responses (such as abortion), and entirely comfortable with differences in race, gender, and sexual orientation.

In short, today’s young people are balm to the liberal educator’s soul. Ideally, liberal education should literally do just that – it should be education that liberates, that frees the mind from the vagaries and prejudices of received opinion and limited life experiences.

This generation gets a bad wrap of being too materialistic mainly due to technology's hold on Millennials. But as Marcy goes on to point out, technology can go with an engaging education targeting the whole person; the two aren't mutually exclusive.

I find it very interesting that "for the first time since 1982, more than 50 percent of first year students identified 'developing a meaningful philosophy of life' as an important or very important goal of their college experience." This is a statistic I've looked at for a few years now with fascination and pessimism. But with this turning around, perhaps liberal arts is actually due for a comeback much more quickly than we realize.

In a culture that has made hope a buzzword for potential and progress, the unfortunate reality is that the "hope" department is always the first to be cut from our public schools. Today education is being reduced to filling in bubbles, where every child is left behind, and there is too little time that can be allocated to the troubled teens even when they're the most gifted. Even President Obama has remarked that its disappointing that arts programs are being cut in the face of No Child Left Behind.

Despite the downward spiral, there remain some very few old-school teachers who push through the crowded halls, overcome the kids with drug problems, and go the extra mile for their students.

I was privileged to attend an event with one of those unique individuals, in one of those one-in-a-million departments where everyone, students, parents, a teacher, indeed the entire community has rallied around one of the few arts programs in the state of Oklahoma garnering real results with students.

The Yukon High School Drama Department under the direction of instructor Rhonda Hartwig, wasn't always where it is today. Students met in a large metal building that even the school instructed them to leave in the event of inclement weather. But even that large room was a step up from previous digs. Today, the department has developed into a true anomaly. With classes in one room and a satellite Blackbox Theatre attached, students can perform for small crowds as often as they would like. It comes in handy with the now rarely available thousand person auditorium stage that the students may use only once a year.

While many proclaim the arts to be a waste of time and energy demanding more testing, math, and science this group doesn't consider Drama to be just about training actors. On the back of a program for a recent performance of The Outsiders appears an autographs section, but the bottom reads

"Never forget, Drama is the bridge that connects every art from. Creative writing, visual art, music, use of voice, dance as stage movement - every art form is reflected on the stage and in the theatre. Participate in life. If you aren't part of the solution, you are part of the problem."

Out of 25 years the department has graduated students that work in entertainment in New York and Los Angeles but also youth that have gone on to be some of the greatest public speakers of their class seeing jobs in politics, law, ministry, broadcasting and journalism, media development, marketing, and more with the common thread that the students gained confidence, leadership, and public speaking skills from hours clocked on stage and in class.

"...The surprising talent withint he walls of Yukon High School is crafted and polished to a high standard of Thespian excellence," says Justin Benefiel now studying at the New York Film School.

"I credit her long-term support as part of why I am successful on Broadway as the Operations Manager of Disney Theatrical Merchandise," says Shawn Baker of Disney.

"Ms. Hartwig was the person that taught me about the show and the business. Today I'm working as a professional entertainer, and I still work with the same resume model she tought how to do. Most of the tools I use today, I have learned with Ms. Hartwig when I was 17," says Marlene Schaff.

While the success in the arts is a great element of the program its the people like actress Wendi Maher who graduated in 2002 that have harnessed the practical skills

"When I was introduced to Ms. Hartwig and the drama program in the fall of 1998, I was a timid, self-conscious 14 year old who, like many teenagers, lacked any idea of the direction they hoped to go with their life. During the four years I had the privilege of being part of Yukon Drama, I began my development into the strong, confident, young woman I am today."

Scott Murry Founder of Infinite Savvy a company that bridges the gap between real estate and technology agrees

"Beyond public speaking skills and self esteem, one of the most important things I learned is that everyone has something beneficial to offer to the situation at hand. Ms. Hartwig had an uncanny ability to make every student feel welcome, needed, and proud to be part of a team who worked together for a common goal.

As a business owner I strive to apply that concept every day. its my job to identify the skill set of each employee and properly assign tasks accordingly to their strengths while challenging their weaknesses to promote growth. That is the type of necessary life skill you can't learn from a book . . ."

A recent piece in Education Magazine advocates for Drama Programs by citing a UCLA study that proves children in the arts tend to test better:

"While many parents fear participation in drama will damage their child’s academic progress, a UCLA study concluded that students involved in the arts tend to have higher academic performance and better standardized test scores -- nearly 100 points better on the SAT, according to a separate study by The College Board.

Academic gains aren’t the only benefits. There are the obvious ones: improved self-confidence, better public speaking skills, but [instructive Gari] Jones says students show other gains as well, such as the “ability to work with an ensemble in cooperative ventures" and the "ability to work through consensus and differences or obstacles to achieve a goal.” She points out that a play requires students to follow a time line, to use self-discipline, and to accept feedback. Studying theater can be a great starting point for careers such as teaching, law, and politics, not to mention broadcasting and performing. And the ability to speak confidently in front of a group is a boon for any career."

On a warm spring day not too far from Graduation, students were greeted by several great treats. First, former students who had just graduated from the American Music and Dramatic Academy in Los Angeles returned to perform and speak to students about successes and attainable goals. Second, internationally known artist Wayne Coyne from the Flaming Lips was to also speaking to students about their potential and achieving their dreams. The Flaming Lips were recently awarded as the State Rock Song for the state of Oklahoma for their tune Do You Realize. Oklahoman's voted online to choose

Part 1

Part 2

Wayne Coyne Part 3

Wayne Coyne Part 4

Wayne Coyne Part 5

Wayne Coyne Part 6

Please Recommend on Kos

In an article published Thursday, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported on a UCLA Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) survey, "The American Teacher," which found that a majority of today's faculty place an emphasis on becoming a change agent when teaching college students as opposed to teaching them the classic works of Western civilization.

The UCLA education professor who directs the institute believes the results point to a burgeoning gap in higher education between the abstract and the practical.

Sylvia Hurtado, a professor of education at UCLA who directs the research institute, said the gap between those who value teaching Western civilization and those who value teaching students to be social activists reflects a shift in emphasis from the abstract to the practical. "The notion of a liberal education as a set of essential intellectual skills is in transition," she says. "It's also about social and personal responsibility, thinking about one's role in society, and creating change."

Across the board, more faculty admitted to paying attention to the liberal arts while teaching.

The survey found other evidence that professors are increasingly interested in helping students develop morals and in helping them get a well-rounded education and form a commitment to their communities. In particular, 72.8 percent of professors think it is important to instill in students an appreciation for the liberal arts—nearly 15 percentage points more than said so three years ago. About 56 percent say it is important to instill an appreciation for community service—a nearly 20 percentage-point increase—and 71.8 percent say it is important to enhance students' "self understanding." About 70 percent say it is important to help students develop "moral character," 13 percentage points more than said so three years earlier.

Those are pretty big jumps for three years in between surveys. I would undoubtedly think that the success of Obama's change-based campaign and the high interest in the presidential election has something to do with these numbers.

Others argue that faculty are beginning to pay increased attention to the non-classroom side of the student, as incidents like the Virginia Tech shootings of April 2007 and others involving campus violence have occurred.

Whatever the cause, I'm encouraged by these findings, and I'm hopeful that the kind of education seen here -- multidisciplinary, focused on empowerment and citizenship -- continues to grow in the future.

An ostensibly unrelated commentary piece by a Middlebury College economics professor (subscription req. - sorry!), also published in The Chronicle this week, argued that economics at a liberal arts college is the best major for college graduates to have in a depressed job market following graduation, and as a result, it's popularity is surging.

Like many liberal-arts institutions, Middlebury College, where I teach, has a problem: Too many students want to be economics majors. Economics enrollments keep growing, and adding more faculty members to the department seems to only increase the demand. The rumor on the campus is that if the college actually provided enough professors to meet the demand for economics courses, it would have to change its name to the Middlebury School of Economics.

Professors at other liberal-arts colleges confirm that the phenomenon is widespread and has been for some time.

[...]

Companies like to hire economics majors from liberal-arts colleges not because the students have been trained in business, but because they have a solid background in the liberal arts. What I hear from businesspeople is that they don't care what a job candidate has majored in. They want students who can think, communicate orally, write, and solve problems, and who are comfortable with quantitative analysis. They do not expect colleges to provide students with specific training in business skills.

If the economics major's popularity is not due to its intellectual dynamism or connection to business, to what is it due? I suspect a mundane explanation: It is the "just right" major. By "just right" I mean that the economics major provides the appropriate middle ground of skill preparation, analytic rigor, and intellectual excitement that students look for in a major, and that employers look for when hiring students.

Both of these stories are interesting to me because of the "intellectual pragmatism" link involved in both. In one, students are in the classroom developing practical skills, learning to engage the government through their citizenship in order to create positive change. In the other, students are in the classroom, many already possessing these practical quantitative skills, seeking the liberal arts approach to economics and business, adding intellectual heft by learning to write and think creatively.

I'm in the middle of writing another post discussing the increasing number of recent college grads majoring in environmental studies who have gone on to work in institutions (especially higher education). These young professionals advise administration officials on sustainability practice -- more intellectual pragmatism.

And finally, I'd be willing to go out on a limb and argue that the intellectual pragmatism Barack Obama flaunted on the way to the White House wasn't too poorly received by Millennials.

Any feedback? If you share my opinion that we're seeing an appreciation for this melding of intellect and practice among Millennials, how might this help us to continue developing a future majority?