L.A.S.T.

I’ve coined a new acronym: L.A.S.T. stands for Liberal Arts Style Teaching. I admit it’s an ill-suited acronym and unlikely to catch on.

At the institution I’m visiting, a question was posed to me: At a liberal arts college, does one teach chemistry differently compared to being at an R1 institution? That made me wonder if L.A.S.T. exists,* and if so, is it qualitatively different? Is it superior? Liberal arts colleges tout superior teaching and learning experiences. Do these really play out?

I’ve explored some significant differences for science faculty at liberal arts colleges versus R1 institutions, and class size is certainly one major difference. Having small class sizes allows me to pedagogical things I think would be less effective in larger classes. There is hopefully a lot more back-and-forth discussion between professor and student, and also among students. It’s easier to have students come up to the board and show their work. I know all my student’s names and how each of them are doing in my class, which helps on-the-fly when I’m answering questions. (I have some idea what’s behind the question.) But if we’re talking about class size, you wouldn’t expect much difference between a liberal arts college and an R1 for small classes (specialized upper division electives, perhaps).

Maybe it’s the attitude of the faculty member towards the liberal arts curriculum. Are liberal arts college professors better at looking over the fence and making connections to fields outside their own in their teaching? I do this, but I don’t know if I do so more or any better than my counterpart at an R1. Perhaps it plays out more in office conversations with my students. When a student visits, we talk chemistry, but I often ask the student what other classes they are in and what sorts of things interest them. Maybe that’s unique to me, and if I was an R1 professor I might do the same thing. Except that an R1 professor teaching a large G-Chem or O-Chem lecture would almost never have students visit their office. Students would just go see their TAs if they had questions. So perhaps the milieu of the liberal arts college encourages more frequent direct interactions between student and professor. This also plays out in G-Chem or O-Chem lab where in a liberal arts college, professors are the instructors; at an R1 graduate TAs are the instructors. Or could it be more active learning in the classroom?

The other close interaction a liberal arts college chemistry professor has with students is close mentoring in undergraduate research. At an R1, an undergraduate is often working with a grad student or postdoc, rather than the professor. There are also other opportunities in the community-feel of a liberal arts college that encourages interactions between undergraduates and professors outside the classroom, office or lab. Perhaps there are just as many opportunities at an R1, but I’m guessing most chemistry professors at an R1 only rarely attend these sorts of events – there are grants and papers to write if you aren’t interacting directly with the students and postdocs in your lab.

But I’m still skirting the question of whether there’s such a unique thing as L.A.S.T. If small class sizes and being in a setup that encourages more faculty-student interaction is all that’s needed, then an R1 can perhaps provide the same student experience. In fact, many large R1 institutions have smaller “Honors” colleges within them to do just that. The difficulty with extending to the student body at large is a matter of scale and cost. There’s a reason why private institutions are so much more expensive, and smaller-sized institutions such as liberal arts colleges more so.

As the prime conduit of providing or facilitating the liberal arts education, maybe faculty are the key as to whether students experience L.A.S.T. or not. In chemistry, and the natural sciences more generally, the faculty candidate best suited to a liberal arts college is quite different from an R1. The type of student who opts for a liberal arts college instead of a large public institution might also be different in a number of respects, on average, for a variety of reasons. Maybe there’s a synergy leading to a particular cultural milieu at liberal arts colleges, for better or worse. So maybe it’s not so much that liberal arts colleges have a particular teaching style, but that the culture surrounding teaching and learning is different. Is it superior? That’s the subject of a different blog post.

*A faculty member actually used the phrase “Liberal Arts Style Teaching”; it’s the first time I’ve heard that specific phrase.