NOTES FROM THE IGE DISCUSSION OF THE LIBERAL ARTS
November 16, 2012
The discussion focused on a definition of the liberal arts. What exactly do we mean when we say that
the education a student gets at UMF is “grounded in the liberal arts” or that UMF is “a public liberal arts
college”? In what ways is this a distinctive approach to postsecondary education?
The group read an unpublished paper by Michael Carbone, a Professor of Education at Muehlenburg
College, which argues that (even in the current environment) we should not be defending the liberal arts
as valuable in the economic marketplace (e. g., because it gives students writing and critical thinking
skills useful in all professions) but rather as a means of “liberating the mind.” In Carbone’s view, liberal
arts education encourages “a way of framing the world and defining and shaping one's ability to
construct meaning from experience” and “a commitment to critique and knowledge as providing a
context . . . necessary to thoughtful, humane and purposeful human action.” The liberal arts offer
“mindfulness,” “attentiveness,” “the ability to form questions about the taken-for-granted,” in
opposition to “a life of thoughtless routine.”
In opposition to Carbone’s argument, many of those present did want to discuss the marketplace utility
of liberal arts education and suggested that Carbone had created a false dichotomy in opposing
marketplace arguments and more idealistic accounts. Why not both? Several people also rightly
wanted to challenge the suggestion that there are no alternatives other than liberal arts education and
“thoughtless routine,” noting that many people without a college education of any kind are reflective
and mindful. But a more careful statement of Carbone’s position might acknowledge this while still
valuing liberal arts education as a particularly intensive address to the challenges of self-awareness and
meaning-making that all humans face.
A more fundamental concern was whether or not Carbone is defining what is distinctive about liberal
arts education accurately and whether what he describes is “liberal arts education” or just “university
education” or “college.” When the group tried to define liberal arts education itself—and in particular
the liberal arts at UMF—a range of possibilities emerged:
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The liberal arts offer an alternative to the triumph of consumerism—a liberation from pure
consumerism as a mode of “thoughtlessness.”
The liberal arts offer “three Cs”: creativity, critical thinking, and community.
The liberal arts address key questions: what does it mean to be free or have agency? what does
it mean to have a good society? How can we achieve sustainability?
A liberal arts education is “that extra something” that you bring to your career (e. g., as a
classroom teacher)
At UMF, what is distinctive about liberal arts is the sense of connectedness—the way faculty
talk to one another across disciplinary boundaries, the way students are encouraged to see
connections between classes and disciplinary approaches.
A crucial feature of liberal arts education (emphasized by education programs) is the ability to
self-reflect, think about one’s own thinking, subject one’s thinking to critique and dialogue.
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Dialogue is itself a central feature in liberal education; a liberal arts college provides dialogue
with peers and instructors as a context for developing one’s thinking (and self-awareness).
Community is a central value in liberal arts education—both providing a community (in and out
of class) in which thinking can develop and modeling the relation between the individual and
community in the world.
The discussion wandered into other areas—particularly regarding community-building and
interdisciplinarity at UMF and the perceived divide between liberal arts and education programs—but
these were the most persistent themes regarding a definition of the liberal arts.
To me, the ideas that resonated most strongly were self-awareness, dialogue and critique,
interdisciplinarity, and community. I found myself unpersuaded that there was any significant
difference between our goals in these areas and the goals of a large university like the University of
Missouri, where my wife went to school. All American universities are engaged in liberal arts education,
to some degree; all of them are attempting to promote these same values. What should be distinctive
about “public liberal arts” at a place like UMF is a commitment to these values as central –as the
principal values of the institution—and (more important, perhaps) the advantage our size give us in
promoting these values with our students. We have small classes that provide an excellent opportunity
for dialogue, critique, and self-awareness ; we know each other and can make interdisciplinary
connections across the hall or in the snack bar; we are in a position to emphasize curricular and cocurricular communities. If we want to develop our own self-awareness, as faculty in a small college—
what are doing here, exactly?—maybe these are some starting points.
If these are in fact important themes, I found myself wondering what we might do to emphasize them
more. What can I do, as Interim Provost—what can we do, as a faculty—to create more interdisciplinary
opportunities and connections and to embed them in the curriculum? How can we recognize the
importance of dialogue, critique, and self-awareness in our courses? What can we do to encourage and
create opportunities for communities among students and faculty? I hope that we can continue to talk
about these questions (and others) as the year develops.
A final note. One very positive theme in the discussion, from my perspective, was the sense of shared
values and concerns that emerged among faculty in the arts and sciences and in education and other
professional programs. The values we defined as central to “liberal arts”—for example, self-awareness
and community—were without exception central to our education programs, and in many cases, our
colleagues in education had developed explicit strategies (e. g., professional learning communities,
transparent teaching) to promote them. To me, there seemed to be a lot of opportunities for further
collaboration among faculty and communication with students about our shared goals in these areas.
We have a lot to teach each other about promoting the values of liberal arts education. And it would be
good to be able to show students the continuity between what they are doing in anthropology and what
they are doing in a methods course.
DPG
12.10.12