March 1-2, 2006, was the seventh year marking the annual Humanities Advocacy Day, which promotes federal support for scholarly research, education, and public programs in humanities, otherwise known as the liberal arts. During these two days, scholars, librarians, museum officials and other intellectuals from across the US are gathering in Washington D.C. to reiterate to government policy-makers of the public value of the humanities. Has a liberal arts education any value to society?
Some think liberal arts are a good for pre-professional students. It is only when parents and grown up children start looking at the job market that the lower income prospects from a liberal arts education hit them. Practical skills such as accounting, marketing, computer programming and engineering can land you a job, but with liberal arts, it not is that easy.
When Jefferson, farther of America founded a public university, it was obvious to him that a proper education should advance prosperity and power. Concluding his inaugural address to the University of St. Andrews, John Stuart Mill would not defend a liberal arts education on utilitarian grounds. “I do not attempt to instigate you by the prospect of direct rewards,” he told his charges. He only promised “the deeper and more varied interest you will feel in life: which will give it tenfold its value, and a value which will last to the end.”
I asked my son-in-law Tim, what he though about a liberal arts education. This is what he had to say; “A liberal arts education teaches students to think and solve problems, it teaches creativity and imagination, it teaches communication, and most importantly it teaches perspective. A “technical” education tends to teach students specific knowledge and skills. It teaches students what to do in specific situations and focuses them on a single perspective. In today’s business environment, historical hierarchical and “silo” thinking is being replaced with teamwork and cross-disciplinary thinking, within a framework of “managing change”. While there will always be a need for specialists, the more successful workers will be those who are better able to “learn to learn” as new skills are required and new professions develop. Personally, I would much rather hire someone who knows “how to think” than “how to do x”, and the liberal arts-educated worker can better cope with change, having received an education in “how” rather than “what”. Liberal arts is becoming a specialty education, and some professionals who missed it regret so much about it. One such professional was Mark Fasold, Senior Vice President/Chief Financial Officer at L.L. Bean in Freeport, Maine. Please read up on his talk delivered at Hamilton College on November 2, 2002 on Liberal Arts Education - The New Specialty
I will leave this subject in an incomplete state for now and will complete it with my own personal experiences and views of it at a near future date. In summary I agree with Tim and Mark about the importance of a good liberal arts education. However, I also support a good professional education for its training – making things happen in the real world. A professional education plus an academic education is great. An academic education makes a person think and formulate theory. A practical education can improve brain function to make theory work and a liberal arts education gives a great cross-disciplinary exposure. More on this later, these may not be my final views, but this is my initial reaction. If any reader has any comments to make here, please do so.
Thank you.
In the 1980s, Citigroup conducted a study of employees they hired. Liberal arts students, over time, reached higher places in the organization because they understood people and how to work with them. A technical education will get you to the middle of the organization but rarely to the top.
mano
Posted by: Mano | March 20, 2006 at 12:04 PM