Connecting the Liberal Arts

It’s my fault that my students have been thinking about the liberal arts and what having a liberal education might mean for them. In addition to the Open Classroom last week, involving first-year students in my general chemistry class and throughout the Living Learning Community, I also had the students (just) in my class read and discuss an article by William Cronon. Here’s a snapshot of the title, abstract and citation.

Cronon begins the article by discussing why the terms “liberal arts” or “liberal education” are confusing in this day and age. What was true in 1988 when this article was written is still true 30 years later. My students found his definitions and distinctions helpful; several of them commented that before setting foot on our college campus they didn’t really know what a liberal arts education meant, beyond it being ‘holistic’ and having to take different classes outside of your major of interest. They heard a bit more about it during orientation, and I discussed it in my first meeting with them at the beginning of the fall semester as we talked about why the college has a core curriculum.

The article then provides a very brief two-paragraph history of the liberal arts from medieval times to the present day. I like his apt description of what the liberal arts looks like to students (and sometimes to faculty, staff and administrators) – lists! Cronon writes: “[we] offer plenty of complicated lists with which we try to identify the courses and distribution requirements that constitute a liberal education.” There are “curricular tables and credit formulas” that are unique to each institution but there are also many similarities in what constitutes a ‘core’. However, “no matter how deliberately [curriculum requirements] have been hammered out in committee meetings, it’s not clear what these carefully and articulated requirements have to do with human freedom.”

Recognizing the irony of his approach, Cronon comes up with his list of what a liberal education might look like. The question: “How does one recognize liberally educated people?” To see his list of ten things, you’ll have to read the article in full. I will just highlight a few that jumped out to the students and me. (I gave students prompt questions for discussions along with the article ahead of time, and they came to class prepared!)

They listen and they hear. Cronon makes the point that it is hard work to really listen carefully to someone and pay full attention. Students resonated with this. I thought this was interesting given the ultra-distracting technological culture that we live in. Students, often glued to their cellphones, also recognize this. I have my students take a seven-day timelog to learn where their time goes, and one student said she didn’t realize how often and how much time she would spend being distracted by her phone, and took concrete steps to tackle the problem. (Kudos to her!)

They respect rigor not so much for its own sake but as a way of seeking truth. Several students expressed how they now thought, after reading Cronon’s article, that a liberal education has a lot to do with learning how to learn – being a life-long learner. Hurrah! I had this as a point to bring up, but they came up with it. Students also commented how they didn’t like the idea of “rigor for its own sake”. I should have tried to tease out this train of thought, but since the students were on a roll – and I had prefaced the discussion with the fact that I should not be doing most of the talking – I didn’t interrupt the flow of conversation and let it move on.

They nurture and empower the people around them. My first-year students are young and idealistic – good for them! It’s a reminder to my jaded older self that this is something I should pay attention to. This point also brought home student observations that Cronon’s list had nothing to do with curricular distribution requirements. This led to a discussion of how one could well graduate having fulfilled the core curriculum, but not actually imbibing what it means to have a liberal education. I think a student commented that “your education is what you make of it” and there was talk about how they were responsible for making their own personal connections to the liberal arts and their goals in life. I was very pleased by this discussion!

They practice humility, tolerance, and self-criticism. This was the one that jumped out at me, because I feel that this day and age lionizes individual branding and self-promotion. Perhaps the rise of the thought leader falls into this category? I can’t do better than using Cronon’s own words: “This is another way of saying that they can understand the power of other people’s dreams and nightmares as well as their own. They have the intellectual range and emotional generosity to step outside their own experiences and prejudices, thereby opening themselves to perspectives different from their own.”

Cronon closes with two caveats on his own article. Firstly, students should not expect, having taken their core curriculum courses, to have been liberally educated. He writes: “A liberal education is not something any of us ever achieve; it’s not a state. Rather it is a way of living in the face of our own ignorance…” Secondly, his list can be misinterpreted to stress individualistic self-improvement. Cronon turns the focus on the community of learners. “In the act of making us free, it also binds us to the communities that gave us our freedom in the first place…” With an allusion to the idea of (the Greek’s) agape love, Cronon argues that “liberal education nurtures human freedom in the service of human community”. His take-home mnemonic for all this? Only Connect… (from E. M. Forster’s Howard’s End).