Solving the Liberal Arts Conundrum

So where do we look to deal with the conundrum that is the liberal arts?  Clearly, the liberal arts lie at the heart of what makes education valuable.  But as higher education has moved from the realm of public good to one of a commodity, this value has been put at odds with the expediency of meeting expectations of the job market. This reality is distasteful to much of higher education, and the higher ed community has largely been in denial that there is an issue to be addressed. Once again, the monolithic nature of our education system has become an obstacle to serving our student population.

In a September 2016 article in Inside Higher Ed, Peter Stokes and Chris Slatter provide a thoughtful discussion concerning the current state of the liberal arts in American higher education.  They begin (actually they end with this) from the position that the liberal arts matter, for all the reasons that I have discussed in previous posts:  they ground students in critical thinking, communication and the basic tools for self-reflection and personal and professional development.  Yet the liberal arts get a bad rap as being irrelevant to helping to produce employable graduates and somehow have become divorced from any practical application.

Stokes and Slatter cite frequent and familiar research that claims that employers look for workers who possess communication and critical thinking skills in addition to technical ability.  As a university president, I heard many employers say that if I could just give them graduates with a strong liberal arts foundation, their organizations could teach them the rest.  This, of course, was pap.  When push comes to shove, employers take technical ability over communication and critical thinking every time.  I’m just saying.

But back to Stokes and Slatter.  The real value in their article lies in their pointing to the root of the liberal arts problem in America.  I think they are spot on when they point to schools of liberal arts as culpable parties in the mess. More specifically, they cite departmental structures in general as barriers to the integration of the liberal arts into the broader curriculum.  In previous posts I have discussed the notion of vocationalism in higher education and its basic antipathy toward General Education.  This attitude persists both in departments of liberal arts and in non-liberal arts departments.  Actually, my use of the term “non-liberal arts” belies this faux distinction.  Sorry.

In any event, Stokes and Slatter look to department structures as a major obstacle.  Figuring out how the liberal arts fit into majors like engineering and health care is difficult when faculty to do not communicate, let alone collaborate.  This is further complicated by departmental competition for funds within the university structure. In both instances, the issue is structural.  Where there is interest in real collaboration, institutions turn to workarounds like interdisciplinary programs.  I personally ran a freshman interdisciplinary program at Temple University for a couple of years.  Faculty and students loved it.  The departments involved were largely dispassionate.  It let them give the appearance of being of being flexible and progressive without having to make a serious commitment.

Aside from the internal struggles that hinder the liberal arts from evolving within our university structures, there is the matter of market expectations.  The market does not really want liberal arts majors who can be trained in professional disciplines.  It wants students who are proficient in technical areas and who have been exposed to the liberal arts disciplines that will enable them to function as productive and creative members in the workplace and in society.  The current departmental structure is a major barrier to this happening.  This goes to my view in an earlier post that the current system needs to be restructured.  Not blown up.  Not obliterated.  Just dismantled and put back together in a new, integrated, and useful configuration. Oh, that would be useful for students. Remember them?