By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | Millions of American students attending college for a classic liberal arts education don’t sit around watching MSNBC, attending Democratic Party meetings or reading The New York Times.
Unfortunately, the word “liberal” in the three-word educational phrase has morphed into a pejorative term, often leading to misunderstandings for what’s intended to describe a broad-based education that expands how students understand and relate to the world.
“The word ‘liberal’ has become a political lightning rod, but a liberal arts education has nothing to do with left-leaning politics,” said Gibbs Knotts, interim dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the College of Charleston. “A liberal arts education prepares students to be better communicators, both orally and in writing. It exposes students to a wide range of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, as well as in the arts and natural sciences.”
Winthrop University President Dan Mahony concurred, noting liberal arts education has nothing to do with being politically liberal or encouraging students to be more liberal politically.
“I would define a liberal arts education as one that is well-rounded and provides students with knowledge and skills across a variety of areas,” he said. “At its core, it focuses on developing a number of important skills including oral and written communication skills, problem solving skills, critical thinking skills, numerical skills, and many others.”
Mahony said he was a good example of why a well-rounded education was important. Throughout college, he trained as an accountant. After college, he lasted as an accountant for 13 months.
“I found the liberal arts aspect of my undergraduate education to be particularly useful to me as I moved through about three other careers and I appreciated that my institution required me to take a lot of liberal arts courses, including seven English courses — a lot for most accounting majors.”
Colleges and universities often offer two tracks – the broad curriculum of study highlighted by Knotts and Mahony and more specific study of a professional discipline to develop a deep competency in a skill, such as engineering, But even undergraduate students who focus on courses to get into medical or law school generally are required to take broader courses in English, social sciences and math to ensure they get more of a well-rounded, or liberal arts, education.
“A liberal arts education accommodates a curriculum which encompasses the arts, the natural and social sciences, humanities, philosophy, religion, literature, and languages,” said Francis Marion University President Fred Carter. “Of course, the finest liberal arts education doesn’t simply promote a curriculum, it inspires the independent and lifelong exploration of the knowledge it inspires.”
And Carter should know. He’s not the stereotype of a politically liberal college president. In fact, he served as a major policy adviser for GOP Gov. Carroll Campbell and chief of staff to GOP Gov. Mark Sanford. In between, he ran the old State Budget and Control Board during the tenure of Campbell and another Republican governor, David Beasley.
A broad, deep, liberal arts education, he says, helps political conservatives as well as those who are more liberal.
“Why would anyone even choose an ideology without a full understanding of the range of options and their implications for living a thoughtful and satisfying life?” he asked rhetorically. “And how could one possibly defend opinions without understanding the underpinnings upon which they’re built?”
For those in the education field, there’s not really an accepted synonym for the “liberal” part of the term “liberal arts education,” noted Mike Lefever, interim president and executive director of the state Commission on Higher Education.
“We don’t really say an ‘expansive arts’ or ‘comprehensive arts’ or ‘broad-based arts education,’” Lefever said. “If there is an alternative, talking generally about the benefits of arts and sciences may appeal to some, but there is always the need to define what exactly is ‘arts.’
“You would think that the really smart folks in the academy would have figured this out.”
So when we consider liberal arts education in a society where everything is more polarized, let’s remember we’re talking about educating students to think broadly and consider alternatives, not join a political party.
- Andy Brack’s new book, “We Can Do Better, South Carolina,” is now available in paperback via Amazon.
- Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com.
We Can Do Better, South Carolina!
A good question to consider is “why the polarization?” I would suggest that the progressive tendency to downplay the the good that this country has done since it’s inception in favor of beating the country’s history up over mistakes we’ve made has caused a major rift between Red White and Blue America and “woke” America.
The closest synonym for the Liberal Arts is the Humanities; it is the study of the human traditions into which we’ve been born. These studies help us to know the human knowledge of the languages, the arts, history, philosophy, math, the sciences that is our heritage. Only ignorance would lead someone to think otherwise, which is why the study of this heritage is essential for us to have better ideas to contemplate when it comes to knowing how best to use our technical achievements.
Liberally spread the sesame seeds on the topping in my recipe means, Don’t be afraid to use too much” or “Be generous” or “Its OK to spill over.” You get the idea; err on the side of too much rather than too little because more enhances the richness of what you will be consuming. It certainly does not suggest conserving the sesame seeds.
What is wrong with a liberal education? Clearly in a liberal education there are too many ideas to consider, ways of looking at things or people sharing the human condition that lead us down the path of Christian thinking to, “Love one another” as that would be too many to love. Where would we draw the line? Christians, not Muslims, not refugees, not them.
How should education be improved? Liberally narrowing down educational content to rule out the excess of too much is the alternative path to improving education by focusing on such things as employment ready skills and job ready, providing ready blinders to the exclusion of teaching values, ethics and doing the right thing arrived at by thought, metaphor and parental guidance. Besides, we need people, even our representatives to easily and readily fall into line behind our leader or our policies.