Perspectives on the Value of Liberal-Arts Education
Masoud Kheirabadi, Ph.D. Marylhurst University
A liberal-arts education is beneficial because it explores the
ideas and knowledge of the past and transmits them as a cultural
treasure from one generation to the next, while integrating
contemporary discoveries. Through liberal-arts education,
students become involved with questions of meaning and value;
they become acquainted with the great ideas, minds, and texts products of World culture, not of only Western civilization.
There is no doubt that students (particularly in American
institutions of higher education) should become better
acquainted with the heritage of Western civilization. However,
Western civilization cannot be studied in a vacuum, regardless
of interactions with other world cultures. For example to
understand the intellectual revolution of the European
Renaissance, we need to understand the intellectual life of the
Islamic civilization during its golden ages (7th to 10th
century AD) throughout the Middle East from which the
Renaissance borrowed heavily.
A truly liberated liberal-arts education is free from
ethnocentrism, racism, and sexism. It is internationalized in its
scope and reflects the experiences of all people, including
women and members of other ethnic groups. In a true institution
of liberal-arts education there is no monopoly of any particular
gender or race/ethnic group. The institute should represent the
involvement of all interested qualified ethnics and genders.
Students should have access to educators whose race, ethnic
group, culture, and class are different from their own, and the
literary works by women and other ethnic groups should be
incorporated in reading assignments. By having both Western
and Non-Western literary works in class assignments, professors
will give students the opportunity to see how a single issue can
be viewed in many different ways, and how the "solution" to a
single problem differs according to the interpretations of that
problem.
It should not be forgotten that we are living in a pluralistic
society in an interdependent world. Since our students enter a
global economy containing a much broader cultural base, our
liberal-arts education should teach students to have respect for
diversity. They need to be aware and sensitive to diversity of
cultures and the views of the world held by other groups both
within and outside the United States. To acquaint our students
with diverse cultures, we should encourage them to participate
in international student exchange programs or attend intercultural events in their local communities, and even live at least
briefly among a people of other race, ethnic group, culture, and
class.
It is very important for students of the liberal arts to develop
inquiring minds, learning to become thoughtful readers,
effective writers, and articulate speakers. They should examine
the nature of their society and question its most fundamental
assumptions, comprehend and reveal the social origins of the
prevailing political, economic, and cultural orders of their
society, and be aware of the major issues of their time
understanding them in their historical contexts. Students of
today are the builders of tomorrow: they should be trained as
informed, critical citizens capable of actively participating in
shaping and governing a democratic society.
While liberal-arts education concentrates on people and ideas, it
cannot disregard the economic security and status desired by
students. Students must learn how to integrate their liberal-arts
education with their professional studies and apply their overall
learning to the practical scene. To provide our students with
employment opportunities we need to integrate our liberal-arts
education with professional knowledge. However, we should not
forget that we are not in business to merely develop human
capital to fill employment slots. Through liberal-arts education
we can encourage our students to develop a sense of social
responsibility and service to others, solve problems of those who
lack the resources and access to political power to alter their
situations and find their "best" way in the world.. Here, one can
question the role of liberal-arts education as a teacher of moral
values. How can a so- called "value-free" institution teach moral
values to its students? Because our major duty as educators is to
teach our students how to think not what to think.
Liberal-art educators cannot teach moral values directly to their
students. Moral values are basically implanted in families and
taught in the houses of worship. However, in liberal-arts classes,
the values learned must be put to trial: different kinds of values
must be discussed in an open fashion free from any kinds of
dogma and doctrine. Students in this kind of atmosphere will
have chance to explore their personal values and beliefs in a
systematic way.
Although a liberal-arts education does not directly teach moral
values, the college indirectly, as Bartlett Giomatti the former
president of Yale University argues, teaches moral values by "its
acts as an institution, by its institutional behavior." Institutional
behavior can be seen in the ways that a college treats its
employees, invests its money, admits students, hires minorities,
promotes faculty, receives grants from corporations, comports
itself vis-a-vis other institutions, develops its curriculum,
teaches its classes, and so on.
A similar argument is made by Alexander Astin, a professor of
Higher Education at UCLA. He suggests that before we, as
professors and administrators, consider what values we would
like to see our students embrace, we should ask ourselves
questions regarding our own conduct in relation to our students
and to one another: question the ways we teach our classes, test
and grade our students, the ways we treat each other as
professional colleagues, and the manner in which we run our
institution.
What kinds of models are we for our students? Does our overall
function as an institute of higher education promote the kind of
values we would like to see such as honesty, respect for others,
nonviolence, tolerance, empathy, compassion, good citizenship,
and social responsibility? Or, does it merely encourage more
individualism, competitiveness, and materialism?
In conclusion, I refer to Mortimer Adler's statement that, "The
direct product of liberal education is a good mind, well
disciplined in its process of inquiring and judging, knowing and
understanding, and well furnished with knowledge, well
cultivated by ideas." Students with such a mind will change the
world for better.