An aid to design your own liberal arts core curriculum
College students and their dismal performance in history and civics
When US News and World Report ranks ‘liberal arts’ colleges, it lists such schools as Amherst, Williams, Wellesley, or Haverford. Nowhere, however, does it mention what the ‘liberal arts’ are. We’re also left in the dark about why a college might provide such a program, or why a student might seek entry into an institution, usually with a stiff price tag, that offers a liberal arts curriculum. A lot of confusion surrounds the liberal arts.
Two key advocates of a “liberal arts” education, Howard and Mathew Greene—legends in the world of college placement consultants—describe liberal arts as a “broad-based education in one or more…fields [ranging from] English language and literature, or foreign languages [to] mathematics, biological sciences, and philosophy. The skills in critical reading, analysis, problem solving, close reading, revised writing… that students develop with a liberal arts education become their ingrained talents for the rest of their lives.” (p. 21, The Public Ivies) The Greene’s description of “liberal arts” is helpful, though it still leaves a major question unanswered: how do you get a liberal arts education?
A large, informative guide (1084 pages) from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) aptly named, Choosing the Right College 2010-2011, advocates getting a liberal arts education by attending a college that has a ‘core curriculum.’ A core curriculum requires students take specific classes, usually in the classics, philosophy, religious studies, political studies, English, and history. For example, St. John’s College, a ‘liberal arts’ college with campuses in Annapolis, Maryland and Santa Fe, New Mexico, is an extreme example of a liberal arts school. Its core curriculum is the Great Books (masterpieces of Western thought that include Shakespeare, Thucydides, Pascal, etc.). So when a student takes calculus, rather than using some textbook, she’ll read the writings of Newton and Leibnitz, the co-inventors of calculus. What happens if the school you plan to attend doesn’t have a core curriculum? Don’t worry, Choosing the Right College reviews the course offerings of 134 institutions, virtually all the highly selective schools--along with a few surprises, and suggests specific courses to fulfill your own, makeshift, core curriculum.
One good reason students might benefit from a core curriculum composed of liberal arts courses: how many 17 or 18 year olds really know what courses they should select to fill in their knowledge gaps? One subject, for example, that many students avoid when they enter college is history; and the consequences of this avoidance are proving disturbing. Riding on the answer is whether higher education is preparing students for lives as informed and engaged citizens. According to the results of a report issued by ISI, a report based upon a set of tests over US history and civics taken by a statistically significant number of entering college freshman and graduating seniors, over 75% of college seniors “could not identify that the purpose of the Monroe Doctrine was to prevent foreign expansion in the Western Hemisphere.” In such schools as the University of California, Berkeley; Cornell; Brown; Duke; Yale; and Johns Hopkins, students know less about American civics and history as graduates, than they did when they entered. You may read about this survey, including some of the questions from the test, and its results, at www.americancivicliteracy.org.
A number of parents worry how will their kids make a living once they leave college? Liberal arts seems more a rich man’s education. However, gaining a liberal arts education does not necessarily preclude studying engineering or pre-medicine. Lots of schools, both public and private, offer liberal arts. UCLA, with its honors program, http://www.ugeducation.ucla.edu/honors/hchome.html, addresses the skills and interdisciplinary study of a solid liberal arts program. Yale, through its Directed Study Program, headed up by Anthony Kronman, the former Dean of the Yale Law School, is a superb liberal arts program (though possibly a bit too rigorous if attempted along with an engineering focus). I know a number of people who majored in English (and took a solid load of ‘liberal arts’ courses) as pre-meds, and went on to become doctors. Liberal Arts acknowledges that none of us leaves college as finished products. Rather, it teaches a student how to learn. That’s something all of us will need to do the rest of our lives. So why not start the process in college?