In Defense of a Liberal Education

In Defense of a Liberal Education

Author: Fareed Zakaria

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2015-03-30

Total Pages: 93

ISBN-13: 0393247694

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CNN host and best-selling author Fareed Zakaria argues for a renewed commitment to the world’s most valuable educational tradition. The liberal arts are under attack. The governors of Florida, Texas, and North Carolina have all pledged that they will not spend taxpayer money subsidizing the liberal arts, and they seem to have an unlikely ally in President Obama. While at a General Electric plant in early 2014, Obama remarked, "I promise you, folks can make a lot more, potentially, with skilled manufacturing or the trades than they might with an art history degree." These messages are hitting home: majors like English and history, once very popular and highly respected, are in steep decline. "I get it," writes Fareed Zakaria, recalling the atmosphere in India where he grew up, which was even more obsessed with getting a skills-based education. However, the CNN host and best-selling author explains why this widely held view is mistaken and shortsighted. Zakaria eloquently expounds on the virtues of a liberal arts education—how to write clearly, how to express yourself convincingly, and how to think analytically. He turns our leaders' vocational argument on its head. American routine manufacturing jobs continue to get automated or outsourced, and specific vocational knowledge is often outdated within a few years. Engineering is a great profession, but key value-added skills you will also need are creativity, lateral thinking, design, communication, storytelling, and, more than anything, the ability to continually learn and enjoy learning—precisely the gifts of a liberal education. Zakaria argues that technology is transforming education, opening up access to the best courses and classes in a vast variety of subjects for millions around the world. We are at the dawn of the greatest expansion of the idea of a liberal education in human history.


Why Choose the Liberal Arts?

Why Choose the Liberal Arts?

Author: Mark William Roche

Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess

Published: 2010-08-20

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 0268091749

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In a world where the value of a liberal arts education is no longer taken for granted, Mark William Roche lucidly and passionately argues for its essential importance. Drawing on more than thirty years of experience in higher education as a student, faculty member, and administrator, Roche deftly connects the broad theoretical perspective of educators to the practical needs and questions of students and their parents. Roche develops three overlapping arguments for a strong liberal arts education: first, the intrinsic value of learning for its own sake, including exploration of the profound questions that give meaning to life; second, the cultivation of intellectual virtues necessary for success beyond the academy; and third, the formative influence of the liberal arts on character and on the development of a sense of higher purpose and vocation. Together with his exploration of these three values—intrinsic, practical, and idealistic—Roche reflects on ways to integrate them, interweaving empirical data with personal experience. Why Choose the Liberal Arts? is an accessible and thought-provoking work of interest to students, parents, and administrators.


The Evidence Liberal Arts Needs

The Evidence Liberal Arts Needs

Author: Richard A. Detweiler

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2021-11-23

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 0262543109

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Empirical evidence for the value of a liberal arts education: how and why it has a lasting impact on success, leadership, altruism, learning, and fulfillment. In ongoing debates over the value of a college education, the role of the liberal arts in higher education has been blamed by some for making college expensive, impractical, and even worthless. Defenders argue that liberal arts education makes society innovative, creative, and civic-minded. But these qualities are hard to quantify, and many critics of higher education call for courses of study to be strictly job-specific. In this groundbreaking book, Richard Detweiler, drawing on interviews with more than 1,000 college graduates aged 25 to 65, offers empirical evidence for the value of a liberal arts education. Detweiler finds that a liberal arts education has a lasting impact on success, leadership, altruism, learning, and fulfillment over a lifetime. Unlike other defenders of a liberal arts education, Detweiler doesn’t rely on philosophical arguments or anecdotes but on data. He developed a series of interview questions related to the content attributes of liberal arts (for example, course assignments and majors), the context attributes (out-of-class interaction with faculty and students, teaching methods, campus life), and the purpose attributes (adult life outcomes). Interview responses show that although both the content of study and the educational context are associated with significant life outcomes, the content of study has less relationship to positive adult life outcomes than the educational context. The implications of this research, Detweiler points out, range from the advantages of broadening areas of study to factors that could influence students’ decisions to attend certain colleges.


Leadership and the Liberal Arts

Leadership and the Liberal Arts

Author: J. Wren

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2009-03-30

Total Pages: 238

ISBN-13: 0230620140

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A collection of essays by presidents of prominent liberal arts colleges and leading intellectuals who reflect on the meaning of educating individuals for leadership and how it can be accomplished in ways consistent with the missions of liberal arts institutions.


You Can Do Anything

You Can Do Anything

Author: George Anders

Publisher: Little, Brown

Published: 2017-08-08

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 0316548855

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In a tech-dominated world, the most needed degrees are the most surprising: the liberal arts. Did you take the right classes in college? Will your major help you get the right job offers? For more than a decade, the national spotlight has focused on science and engineering as the only reliable choice for finding a successful post-grad career. Our destinies have been reduced to a caricature: learn to write computer code or end up behind a counter, pouring coffee. Quietly, though, a different path to success has been taking shape. In You Can Do Anything, George Anders explains the remarkable power of a liberal arts education - and the ways it can open the door to thousands of cutting-edge jobs every week. The key insight: curiosity, creativity, and empathy aren't unruly traits that must be reined in. You can be yourself, as an English major, and thrive in sales. You can segue from anthropology into the booming new field of user research; from classics into management consulting, and from philosophy into high-stakes investing. At any stage of your career, you can bring a humanist's grace to our rapidly evolving high-tech future. And if you know how to attack the job market, your opportunities will be vast. In this book, you will learn why resume-writing is fading in importance and why "telling your story" is taking its place. You will learn how to create jobs that don't exist yet, and to translate your campus achievements into a new style of expression that will make employers' eyes light up. You will discover why people who start in eccentric first jobs - and then make their own luck - so often race ahead of peers whose post-college hunt focuses only on security and starting pay. You will be ready for anything.


Redesigning Liberal Education

Redesigning Liberal Education

Author: William Moner

Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press

Published: 2020-07-07

Total Pages: 349

ISBN-13: 1421438216

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Redesigning liberal education requires both pragmatic approaches to discover what works and radical visions of what is possible. The future of liberal education in the United States, in its current form, is fraught but full of possibility. Today's institutions are struggling to maintain viability, sustain revenue, and assert value in the face of rising costs. But we should not abandon the model of pragmatic liberal learning that has made America's colleges and universities the envy of the world. Instead, Redesigning Liberal Education argues, we owe it to students to reform liberal education in ways that put broad and measurable student learning as the highest priority. Written by experts in higher education, the book is organized into two sections. The first section focuses on innovations at 13 institutions: Brown University, College of the Holy Cross, Connecticut College, Elon University, Florida International University, George Mason University, Georgetown University, Lasell College, Northeastern University, Rollins College, Smith College, Susquehanna University, and the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay. Chapters about these institutions consider the vast spectrum of opportunities and challenges currently faced by students, faculty, staff, and administrators, while also offering "radical visions" of the future of liberal education in the United States. Accompanying vision chapters written by some of the foremost leaders in higher education touch on a wide array of subjects and themes, from artificial intelligence and machines to the role that human dispositions, mindsets, resilience, and time play in how we guide students to ideas for bringing playful concepts of creativity and openness into our work. Ultimately, Redesigning Liberal Education reveals how humanizing forces, including critical thinking, collaboration, cross-cultural competencies, resilience, and empathy, can help drive our world. This uplifting collection is a celebration of the innovative work being done to achieve the promise of a valuable, engaging, and practical undergraduate liberal education. Isis Artze-Vega, Denise S. Bartell, Randy Bass, John Bodinger de Uriarte, Laurie Ann Britt-Smith, Jacquelyn Dively Brown, Phillip M. Carter, Nancy L. Chick, Michael J. Daley, Maggie Debelius, Janelle Papay Decato, Peter Felten, Ashley Finley, Dennis A. Frey Jr., Chris W. Gallagher, Evan A. Gatti, Lisa Gring-Pemble, Kristína Moss Gudrún Gunnarsdóttir, Anthony Hatcher, Toni Strollo Holbrook, Derek Lackaff, Leo Lambert, Kristin Lange, Sherry Lee Linkon, Anne M. Magro, Maud S. Mandel, Jessica Metzler, Borjana Mikic, William Moner, Phillip Motley, Matthew Pavesich, Uta G. Poiger, Rebecca Pope-Ruark, Michael Reder, Michael S. Roth, Emily Russell, Heather Russell, Ann Schenk, Michael Shanks, Susan Rundell Singer, Andrea A. Sinn, Christina Smith, Allison K. Staudinger, William M. Sullivan, Connie Svabo, Meredith Twombly, Betsy Verhoeven, David J. Voelker, Scott Windham, Mary C. Wright, Catherine Zeek


Liberal Arts for the Christian Life

Liberal Arts for the Christian Life

Author: Jeffry C. Davis

Publisher: Crossway

Published: 2012-04-30

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 1433524058

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For over forty years, Leland Ryken has championed and modeled a Christian liberal arts education. His scholarship and commitment to integrating faith with learning in the classroom have influenced thousands of students who have sat under his winsome teaching. Published in honor of Professor Ryken and presented on the occasion of his retirement from Wheaton College, this compilation carries on his legacy of applying a Christian liberal arts education to all areas of life. Five sections explore the background of a Christian liberal arts education, its theological basis, habits and virtues, differing approaches, and ultimate aims. Contributors including Philip Ryken, Jeffry Davis, Duane Litfin, John Walford, Alan Jacobs, and Jim Wilhoit analyze liberal arts as they relate to the disciplines, the Christian faith, and the world. Also included are a transcript of a well-known 1984 chapel talk delivered by Leland Ryken on the student's calling and practical chapters on how to read, write, and speak well. Comprehensive in scope, this substantial volume will be a helpful guide to anyone involved in higher education, as well as to students, pastors, and leaders looking for resources on the importance of faith in learning.


The Aims and Organization of Liberal Studies

The Aims and Organization of Liberal Studies

Author: D. F. Bratchell

Publisher: Elsevier

Published: 2014-05-16

Total Pages: 161

ISBN-13: 1483164438

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The Aims and Organization of Liberal Studies provides an insight into the contributions of the Departments of Liberal Studies to educational thinking, to ensure the achievement of a proper balance between the acquisition of specialized knowledge and skill; and the development of breadth of outlook; and of personal expression in speech and writing. The book sets to present the importance of liberal education in the personal and social development of a person despite the rapid and profound changes brought about by technological advances. The text tackled the status of liberal studies in the international and local levels; in technical colleges and universities; and in adult education and in industry. Teachers, school administrators, scientists, students, and educators will find this book invaluable.


Liberal Studies

Liberal Studies

Author: Raviraj Dave

Publisher: IndraStra Global e-Journal Hosting Services

Published: 2020-06-30

Total Pages: 162

ISBN-13:

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The Liberal Studies journal is a trans-disciplinary bi-annual journal of the School of Liberal Studies, Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University, INDIA. Each issue of the journal amalgamates research articles, expert opinions, and book reviews on various strands with an endeavor to inquire the contemporary world concerns.


What's Liberal about the Liberal Arts?

What's Liberal about the Liberal Arts?

Author: Michael Bérubé

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 382

ISBN-13: 9780393060379

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Described as one of the "101 Most Dangerous Academics in America" by right-wing critic David Horowitz, Michael Bérubé has become a leading liberal voice in the ongoing culture wars. This "smooth and swift read" (New Criterion) offers a definitive rebuttal of conservative activists' most incendiary claims about American universities, and in the process makes a supple case for liberalism itself. An important polemic as well as "a clear-eyed, occasionally quite humorous account of the joys and frustrations of running a college classroom" (New York Observer), this book is required reading for anyone concerned about the political climate on and off campus.