Last year while visiting a major foundation I was asked, “What are liberal arts colleges trying to do?”
In other words: What is the real work of the liberal arts?
That’s a big question, but to be memorable, the answer should be brief and to the point. Here’s mine:
The offer of a liberal arts education is to create an educational environment for students to script their own ethical lives of accomplishment, purpose, and meaning.
This is what Wabash strives to do for our students. This is our true north.
In the past year—my first as president—we’ve moved forward to support and sustain that work. We’ve begun construction of new housing designed to provide space for our students to begin to live out their liberal arts education. Our admissions and retention efforts yielded an enrollment of 926 students this fall, the highest ever. And at $3.27 million, the 2014 Annual Fund was the second largest in the College’s history.
In September, we hosted leaders in higher education and philanthropy from across the country to honor our Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts (CILA) and its use of evidence to improve teaching and learning, even as we discussed strategies to make liberal arts colleges better.
That same month, we welcomed Hampden-Sydney College for the first Gentlemen’s Classic, a celebration of liberal arts education for young men and the role that sports play in that endeavor.
This fall we launched four co-curricular, interdisciplinary initiatives: Global Health; Democracy and Public Discourse; Digital Arts and Human Values; and the Center for Innovation, Business, and Entrepreneurship. These are not a distraction from the liberal arts curriculum, but ways to apply that education. I think of them as the “liberal arts-plus.’’ Our students “learn by doing” while being mentored by faculty and alumni, absorbing with their thoughts and minds the ways their liberal arts education engages issues and solves problems in a changing and complex world. These experiences deepen their narrative as they leave the College and provide tangible evidence of the value of a liberal arts education that they take into their futures.
We have also transformed our Employment Self-Help (ESH) program to Wabash Internships and Student Employment (WISE), providing real jobs that need to be done and experiences that enhance our students’ education.
We are making Wabash not simply a liberal arts college for men, but the leader in educating young men.
The real work of that education is accomplished by what I call “The Three C’s” of a successful liberal arts culture: challenge, confrontation, and compassion.
A Wabash education is challenging. Life is tough, and we are not preparing young men for life if their education does not make them strive.
A Wabash education is confrontational, a contact sport in which faculty, staff, alumni, and fellow students are teachers. We expose young men to perspectives, cultures, and thoughts that force them to reconsider their long-held beliefs and ideas.
A Wabash education is compassionate. We challenge and confront our students, but in a compassionate environment. We connect them to a community of scholars, peers, staff, alumni, and fellow travelers, supporting them even as we challenge them.
And there is a fourth “C:” A Wabash education provides young men with an ethical compass, a timeless narrative that helps shape their lives. We run on a simple principle—the Gentleman’s Rule: A student is to conduct himself at all times, both on and off campus, as a gentleman and responsible citizen. That is a compass to live by—not just during a student’s time on campus, but for his lifetime
This ethical compass gives Wabash men the edge in leadership. Leadership is about doing the right things—not just doing things right.
Challenged and confronted yet supported in this compassionate community, our students get a lot of practice doing the right thing on their way to becoming Wabash men and doing real work in a difficult world.
My real work, to borrow a phrase from President Elihu Baldwin, “is never to rest” as we strive to provide and sustain that place and culture at Wabash, the liberal arts college for men.
Contact President Hess: hessg@wabash.edu
Follow President Hess on Twitter at @PrezHess