The Liberal Education - Dead or Alive?
Conference Prospectus
This conference is being held as a matter of urgency for two principal reasons. The first is that at Dartmouth, and nationwide, incoming undergraduates appear to be defecting in increasing numbers from the humanities and/or losing sight of broad educational rationales and values. If such a trend continues, the liberal education as now conceived will be placed in jeopardy. It also is a trend that has already created singificant faculty and resource-allocation problems for university administrators. It is not clear whether this trend represents a "flight to practicality" in difficult economic times; a transfer of belief to the cognitive and investigative regimes of the sciences and social sciences; the changing demographics and economics of higher education; disaffection from the traditional ethos of the liberal education; or a combination of these and other factors. These will be among the questions under consideration.
Admittedly, raw data on incoming student preferences and choices can be misleading: decline does not appear to be uniform across all humanities courses, departments, and programs; the humanities component in interdisciplinary programs is not always tallied as a humanities divisional component; a decline in class enrolments does not necessarily follow from a decline in major enrolments; students initially drawn to the sciences and social sciences quite frequently switch to the humanities during their college years; students majoring in the sciences and social sciences (often as pre-meds) quite often pursue a double major or include a humanities minor; student preferences tend to be cyclical. One purpose of the conference will be to clarify the nature and severity of the problems insofar as they exist, and to consider statistical projections. On the face of it, however, a situation bordering on crisis seems to have developed both for the academic humanities and the liberal education they importantly help to underpin. This is a matter of fundamental concern to a college like Dartmouth, which remains militantly and unwaveringly committed to the liberal education. If that commitment is to remain meaningful in practice, however, the question of enrolment patterns and resource-allocation cannot be begged, nor can educators fail to confront--as starkly as the situation may require--the question posed by the conference title" "The Liberal Education: Dead or Alive?"
The second, related, reason for organizing this conference is that the ideals and fortunes of the liberal education are not exclusively bound up with the humanities. At most colleges and some universities, notably Dartmouth, the sciences and social sciences are regarded as important components of an all-round liberal education. In principle, then, all fields are subsumed under the liberal education and all faculty share a commitment to it. Unless that tacit commitment is openly revoked, all faculty have a stake in the well-being of the humanities, but also in supporting and, if necessary, rethinking the broad liberal education under current conditions (ones that include the emergence of interdisciplinarity). While lip service is often paid to the ideals of the liberal education, the reality frequently includes lack of respect or comprehension across the Two Cultures divide, exacerbated by divisional rivalry, disdain, and suspicion. For this conference, we have pointedly invited speakers representing the humanities, sciences, social sciences and interdisciplinary fields for what we hope will be an unusually collective effort to review the liberal education.
Although the state of the humanities has supplied the initial prompting for this conference, then, the question of the liberal education cannot for long be confined to the domain of the humanities alone. The situation calls for renewed inter-divisional and interdisciplinary discussion focussed specifically on the viability of the modern liberal education. It is a goal of the conference to promote that discussion and elicit a sense of common purpose--or, alternatively, to elicit a recognition that shared belief and purpose are lacking. While the conference is strongly committed to reaffirmation and revitalization of the liberal education--and to finding energetic remedies for perceived existing problems--the question of the liberal education today will not be begged, nor will its historic rationales and configuration(s) be taken for granted.
The conference will consist of four sessions held over two days. Four speakers will participate in each session, each person presenting a paper or delivering an address to last no more than 30 minutes. Open discussion will follow.
1. U.S. Higher Education Today
How, or what degree, is higher education undergoing change at present because of such factors as changing demographics; changing patterns of student enrolment; the emergence of new disciplines and/or interdisciplinary formations; economic pressure to make education pay off and corresponding "flight" from the humanities to more utilitarian fields? What does it now mean to be an "educated" person? What goals can or should be pursued in higher education under current conditions?
2. The Liberal Education: Past and Present
Historical meaning(s) and institutionalization(s) of the liberal education; the liberal education for whom and what?; the liberal education in and out of the liberal arts college; liberal vs. professional, specialized, or utilitarian education; the liberal education in crisis or change?
3. The Liberal Education Across Disciplines and Divisions
Reshaping and redefining the liberal education across institutional boundaries; the "liberal" possibilities of new fields, technologies, intellectual developments, and interdisciplinary formations
4. Renovating the Liberal Education?
Do we wish education to be, or remain, "liberal?" If so, why and how? By what is it threatened, and what are its current or potential sources of vitality and innovation? Are the historic goals and practices of the liberal education valid today, and if so, how can they pursued or strengthened?