The Wheaton Curriculum:

Why the Liberal Arts

Matters

Renée T. White

Provost

Leadership Weekend

October 19, 2019

It matters because….

There is increasing skepticism about the value of a 4-year education, let alone a liberal arts education

Digging Below the Surface

What is a liberal arts education?

Consider the Etymology - Liberal Arts

Liberalis (Latin): of or relating to a free man, worthy or typical of a free man (especially of studies, education, arts, professions), worthy of a free man in personal appearance, fine, noble, magnanimous.

Ars (Latin): professional, artistic, or technical skill, craftsmanship, artificial methods, human ingenuity, artificiality, crafty action, trick, stratagem, craftiness, guile, personal characteristic or quality, systematic body of knowledge and practical techniques, magic, one of the fine or liberal arts, profession, craft, trade, task, pursuit, artistic achievement or performance, artistic design or representation, work of art, device, contrivance, rules or principles of an art, treatise, method, system, procedure, principle of classification.

So… the liberal arts was what, exactly?

The liberal arts are those subjects or skills that in classical antiquity were considered essential for a free person (Latin: liberalis, "worthy of a free person") to know in order to take an active part in civic life, something that (for Ancient Greece) included participating in public debate, defending oneself in court, serving on juries, and most importantly, military service. Grammar, logic, and rhetoric were the core liberal arts, while arithmetic, geometry the theory of music, and astronomy also played a (somewhat lesser) part in education.

Blaich, Charles, Anne Bost, Ed Chan, and Richard Lynch. "Defining Liberal Arts Education." Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts, 2004.

Words to Live By“It is not so very important for a person to learn facts. For that he does not really need a college. He can learn them from books. The value of an education in a liberal arts college is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think something that cannot be learned from textbooks.”

Albert Einstein (1921)

The Truman Commission on Higher Ed (1947)

The principal goals of higher education are “to bring all people of the nation:

• Education for a fuller realization of democracy in every phase of living;

• Education directly and explicitly for international understanding and cooperation;

• Education for the application of creative imagination and trained intelligence to the solution of social problems”

Liberal Arts EducationA 21st century perspective

Aims and Outcomes of Liberal Arts Education

• Knowledge of human cultures and the physical and natural world

• Intellectual and practical skills

• Personal and social responsibility

• Integrative and applied learning

AAC&U, College Learning for the New Global Century, 2008

Components of a Liberal Arts Education

• Institutional ethos and traditions that place a greater value on developing a set of intellectual arts than on developing professional or vocational skills.

• Curricular and environmental structures that work in combination to create coherence and integrity in students’ intellectual experience.

• An institutional ethos and tradition that place a strong value on student-student and student-faculty interactions both in and out of the classroom.

Learning for lifelong purpose

“While the American Dream has taken a decidedly more materialistic turn in recent years, higher education has consistently been ideologically linked to its fulfillment, whether in its capacity to serve as a catalyst for economic success and social mobility, in its ability to convey the values upon which our society rests, or in its preservation of democratic vitality through an educated citizenry.”

Lynne Pasquerella, President, Association of American Colleges and Universities & Former President of Mt. Holyoke College.

A Complementary perspective

“Understanding how democracy works and what is needed for it to work better is, of course, a fundamental task for higher education…. A lasting commitment to democracy must be founded on the conviction that individuals committed to the public good can and should make a difference. It had to be founded on the conviction that politics is important and that civil society is vital to the success of our societies. We need the knowledge economy but we also need the wisdom society.”

Sjur Bergan, “Reimagining Democratic Societies: What Does Education have to do with It?” In Reimagining Democratic Societies: A New Era of Personal and Social Responsibility (2013)

The Knowledge Economy

Preparing our students for the work force of

the future

The Salary Premium for Liberal Education OutcomesFrom a federal database analyzing qualifications for 1,100 different jobs, there is consistent evidence that the highest salaries apply to positions that call for intensive use of liberal education capabilities, including (random order):

• Writing

• Inductive and Deductive Reasoning

• Judgment and Decision Making

• Problem Solving

• Social/Interpersonal Skills

• Mathematics

• Originality

Source: Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce

The Changing Workplace

Source: Dancing with Robots: Human Skills for Computerized Work, by Frank Levy and Richard J. Murnane. Third Way, 2013.

Learning Outcomes that at Least Four in Five Employers Rate as Very Important

Oral communication

Working effectively with others in teams

Written communication

Ethical judgment and decision-making

Critical/analytical thinking

Applying knowledge/ skills to real world

Students:very important

for successin workplace*

78%

77%

75%

74%

79%

79%

Proportions of employers rating each skill/knowledge area as very important for recent college graduates to have*

*8, 9, 10 ratings on zero-to-10 scale, 10 = very important

Source: “Falling Short? College Learning and Career Success” (Hart Research Associates, 2015)

Every college student should take courses that build the civic knowledge, skills, and judgment essential for contributing to our democratic society

All college students should gain intercultural skills and an understanding of societies and countries outside the United States

Employers Are in Broad Agreement on College Learning Outcomes for All Students Regardless of Their Chosen Field of Study

Employers’ agreement with statements about college learning aims regardless of student’s chosen field of study

All college students should have educational experiences that teach them how to solve problems with people whose views are different from their own

96%

87%

78%

Every college student should acquire broad knowledge in the liberal arts and sciences

All college students should gain an understanding of democratic institutions and values

86%

78%

Students/total agree

94%

85%

86%

83%

87%

Source: “Falling Short? College Learning and Career Success” (Hart Research Associates, 2015)

The Wisdom SocietyPreparing students for civic engagement in a

diverse world

Why wisdom?

“The key to wisdom is this – constant and frequent questioning for by doubting we are led to question and by questioning we arrive at the truth.”

Peter Abelard, 12th Century theologian and philosopher (d. 1142)

Citizenship: Linking Wisdom and Action

“When we ask about the relationship of a liberal education to citizenship, we are asking a question with a long history in the Western philosophical tradition. We are drawing on Socrates’ concept of the ‘examined life,’ on Aristotle's’ notions of reflective citizenship, and above all on Greek and Roman Stoic notions of an education that is ‘liberal’ in that it liberates the mind from bondage of habit and custom, producing people who can function with sensitivity and alertness as citizens of the whole world.”Martha Nussbaum, Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education, 1998.

Engagement in Community

• Critical thinking

• Comfort with ambiguity

• Deliberative dialog and collective decision making

• Global outlook and engagement across difference

• Empathy

• Ethical capacity

• Civic identity

“The primary purpose of education is to open the minds of students and to help them learn to think critically so that they can be citizens in the best sense of that word; to help with the public good. To take care of their families, of course, but to be able to make sound decisions and to understand how you take information and turn it into knowledge. And most importantly to have a strong ethical base, a set of values that guide their actions”

Freeman Hrabowski III, President, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Employers Support Liberal Arts, Diversity, and Civic Learning

Source: Hart Research Associates, It Takes More Than A Major (2013).

Wheaton’s Curriculum Redesign

• Ensure we are realizing these goals of liberal arts education

• Keep our commitment to Wheaton’s heritage

• Consider what prepares our students for life beyond Wheaton

• Rely upon assessment, pedagogy and high impact practices

The

COMPASS

Curriculum

Curriculum Options & Mentoring Pathways to Achieve Student Success

How do we achieve our

goals & signal our values?

How will we distinguish ourselves?

• Three signature Scholars and Honors Programs

• A Connections-First FYE

• A distinctive advising and mentoring program

• A Sophomore Experience

• An innovative LEAPS program, linking liberal arts to professional skills