LiberalArtsOnline Volume 4, Number 9
October 2004
Developing the ability to look at situations from multiple perspectives and appreciate viewpoints other than one's own is often cited as a benefit of liberal arts education. Although we encourage our students to do this in the classroom, how often do we ourselves engage in this behavior when talking about the value and purpose of the liberal arts? All too often these conversations remain within academic circles, and we fail to include people who do not have direct affiliations with higher education. When we invited a diverse group of public citizens to the Center of Inquiry to share their views on liberal arts education, we were reminded that seemingly straightforward ideas can be interpreted in radically different ways. We were surprised by what we heard and suspect that as you read this essay, you will be too.
--Kathleen S. Wise, Editor
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Move Over Mars and Venus!
by Jennifer J. Laskowski
Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts
Wabash College
When it comes to liberal arts education, faculty are from Mars and the general public from Venus. Most faculty believe that parents are primarily concerned about Junior’s first paycheck after graduation and don’t value the liberal arts or anything else that doesn’t directly correspond to job preparation. This is simply not accurate—the situation is actually much more complex. Recent Chronicle of Higher Education surveys show that while parents and other members of the general public strongly feel colleges should prepare students for careers, they also highly value liberal arts outcomes like responsible citizenship and openness to diversity. Motivated by these responses, members of the Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts spoke with a number of people outside the academy about their perceptions of liberal arts outcomes and values. What we heard surprised us and illustrated that this "Mars/Venus" communication gap is far more intricate than originally thought.
Last February we put ourselves smack-dab in the middle of a fascinating conversation with a lawyer, a psychologist, a newspaper reporter, a city school board member, a city councilman, a lobbyist, a union organizer, a Human Rights Watch attorney, a Church Health Service member, and a mediator. This focus group spoke their minds and offered their views on faculty roles, higher order student outcomes, academic disciplines, and the college atmosphere in ways that would strike terror in the hearts of most faculty members around the country.
Initially we asked our participants about their reactions to a 2003 Chronicle of Higher Education survey.(1) This particular survey, in contrast to the widely accepted college-for-job-preparation-sake rhetoric before it, brought to light that a growing number of people think a graduate with well-developed job skills isn’t nearly prepared enough to enter "the real world." While still defending the importance of job preparation, the Chronicle survey revealed strong support for a number of liberal arts outcomes like responsible citizenship, the ability to cope with a rapidly changing world, well-developed values and ethical positions, and a common understanding of the world through broad-based general education. Our gathering of citizens also supported these higher order values, but when we pressed them to tell us what they really meant by critical thinking, leadership, and citizenship, we came to a surprising conclusion. Their definitions of these oh-so-familiar liberal arts skills were sometimes shockingly different from our own.
Any member of the academy knows what "critical thinking" is, right? Sure we may all have our differing spins on what it is exactly, but at least we tend to agree that it’s some sort of application of logic, analysis, reasoning, and problem-solving. Not according to this group. For them, it’s more about gaining knowledge and ability through experience and applying intellectual curiosity to solve practical real-world problems. One attendee summed it up for us: "It’s [knowing] how things work … [and] having the intellectual curiosity to want to figure them out." These things ranged widely from maintaining personal budgets, providing community service, and working together to solve problems; to understanding A.I.D.S. and realizing the social dynamics that cause poverty. Shocked? Just wait, there’s more. The group went on, "there’s nothing more critical in the real world than planning a budget [which consists of] making choices and decisions, power dynamics, embedded values, and knowing how to read a spreadsheet." This emphasis on practicality, application to life after college, and experiential learning dominated the conversation about critical thinking. One participant even urged us to expose students to circumstances they wouldn’t typically encounter in order to help them develop practical experiences and higher order skills to fuel the hunger of intellectual curiosity. Her example, although somewhat over the top, came from a personal travel experience where she was intellectually prepared to immerse herself in a completely foreign culture. But when she found herself in a situation where she needed to kill a chicken for food, she was quickly angered and frustrated because she had no idea how to go about doing it.
Conversations about the desired outcomes of liberal arts education led the group to an examination of the ways colleges help students develop these skills. Most of us are used to colleges and universities that deliver the "one-two" curricular punch—a combination of broad general education and specific academic majors. So when discussing curricular structure, we were again surprised by the responses we got, this time completely dismissing the major. "Get rid of it!" they said, "We want Generalists!" Why? There was an air of concern that students often take on an isolated disciplinary stance at the expense of other "ways of knowing," so the major becomes just another form of pre-professional training and vocational specialization. Additionally, almost everyone in the room had personal accounts highlighting the fact that the experiences that really challenged them and changed their lives occurred outside their majors. As an aside, these folks were also notably upset with the idea that students must deal with the penalties and extra costs that go hand-in-hand with the bureaucracy of changing majors. They did not feel undergraduates should be "punished" if they develop enthusiasm for new interests while in college.
Obviously, we pushed our consultants to give us more on the subject. And, fortunately, they did not feel the need to hold back. They argued that there is basic foundational knowledge out there that every thoughtful citizen needs. It is a knowledge that can be characterized by a larger "sense" of history, philosophy, science, civilization, etc. They told us that graduates should possess a greater awareness of the world around them. This "good habit of thinking" is marked by an awareness of and a better understanding of the impact of history, language, the economy, society, and cultural assumptions on people’s individual world-views, and consequently, their abilities to communicate effectively and think critically. This argument forced us to consider the possibility that a broad "sense" could shift the focus of liberal arts education away from creating professional disciplinarians and towards aiding in the maturation of responsible citizens endowed with a shared vocabulary, common sense, and well-developed moral character.
Even more surprising than their attitudes on curriculum were the group’s recommendations for faculty. Faculty members are traditionally defined by their disciplines and departments: the English teacher, the biologist, the mathematician, and so on. That just wasn’t good enough for this focus group. They flatly stated that faculty, acting as exemplars of the values of liberal arts education, should be teaching outside of their respective disciplines. The reason? "We don’t want valueless experts!" These members of the public perceive a good professor to be a model citizen. A professor should demonstrate a wealth of knowledge outside of his or her discipline, display an appreciation for difference, and should be morally reflective both inside and outside the classroom. In order for students to develop a secure notion of self-identity, the group reasoned, institutions should encourage both faculty and students to leave behind the restrictive bonds of disciplinarity to better engage in both their academic and extra-institutional communities. They also reminded us that a number of familiar qualities and skills—like making moral decisions, taking multiple perspectives, communicating effectively, and working with ambiguity—can be achieved if a campus aims to be a small-scale democratic community comprised of model citizens. Oh, and one more not-so-little thing, they suggested that professors should focus more on teaching and less on research.
Let’s review for a moment what this means for higher education and the liberal arts:
So move over Mars and Venus! It’s obvious that we’re in the midst of an "academy says/public says" conflict. The communication gap that exists between higher education and the general public is much more complex than we’ve previously considered. It’s not just a disagreement about the purpose of higher education, but also a difference of opinion about more fundamental issues like curricular structure and broadly used terminology. If we are to work together to strengthen liberal arts education, we must continue to have these discussions and attempt to understand each other’s language. Our perspectives may still differ on certain issues, but our conversations will be more fruitful because we will be better able to understand, respect, and appreciate the other side of the debate.
Those of us at the Center of Inquiry plan on continuing our dialogue with the public; we’ve scheduled our next citizens focus group for December 2-4, 2004. We encourage you to start your own conversations with members of the public on issues you think are important. You might just be surprised by what you hear. I also challenge you to write to us and let us know how you feel about these outsider observations and opinions. The real questions are: What are you going to do about it? and, Do you care whether the public values liberal arts education? I mean, many faculty members have had the freedom to ignore the public’s views about the liberal arts, but shouldn’t you give the journalists, the city councilwomen and men, and even the lawyers some credit? These people are, after all, products of many of your very own classrooms.
1. "The Chronicle Survey of Public Opinion on Higher Education." Chronicle of Higher Education. (2 May 2003) Volume 49, Issue 34, Section: Special Report.
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The comments published in LiberalArtsOnline reflect the opinions of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the Center of Inquiry or Wabash College. Comments may be quoted or republished in full, with attribution to the author(s), LiberalArtsOnline, and the Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts at Wabash College.