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Liberal Arts

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The Golden Age of American Higher Education

From 1945 to 1975, American higher education had the Midas Touch. Image courtesy of Presenter Media.

After each major war in the history of the United States, significant growth occurred in the American higher education enterprise. All of these increases combined did not equal the growth in the three decades following WWII. The period between 1945 and 1975 could easily be labeled the Golden Age of American Higher Education.

During this time span, American higher education had the Midas touch. Everything was going well. American colleges and universities had overflowing enrollments. They couldn’t build facilities fast enough to satisfy the undergraduate student demand. Graduate schools couldn’t produce a sufficient number of PhDs to fill the faculty positions needed to teach the surfeit of undergraduate students. Public and private supporters tripped over each other as they rushed to provide the enormous increase in financial support needed to finance the vast expansion occurring. Nationally and internationally the reputation and prestige of American higher education were soaring to new heights.

During these three decades, the face of American higher education (AHE) was completely altered. AHE changed its focus. No longer was it predominantly an exclusive club for the sons of the wealthy elite, providing them with a liberal arts veneer to establish and ground them so that they could assume their “rightful place” of leadership in business, governmental, ecclesiastical, and social circles.

President Roosevelt in the Oval Office signing the GI Bill into law. The original photograph was taken by an unknown government employee as part of that person’s official duties. Thus, the photograph is in the public domain in the United States. Image courtesy of the FDR Library and Wikimedia Commons.

As WWII wound down and the nation transitioned into a post-war phase, two presidential actions had an enormous effect on American higher education. The first occurred two weeks after the Allied landing on the beaches of Normandy, France on D-Day, which began the most important battle of the war. On June 22, 1944, President Roosevelt signed the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly known as the G.I. Bill, into law.  This bill provided a very wide range of benefits for returning World War II veterans, including educational assistance for veterans and their families.

This law expired in 1956 and was subsequently replaced by adjustments for veterans of the Korean Conflict and Vietnam War. Of the nearly 16 million World War II veterans, more than 2.2 million used benefits to enroll in a college or university and another 5.6 million participated in various career-oriented training programs. In the peak year of 1947, veterans accounted for 49 percent of all U.S. college admissions. Between 1956 and 1975, another 6 million individuals were aided by educational assistance programs for veterans and their families through extensions to the original GI Bill.

President Truman in 1945. This is an official presidential photograph taken by Edmonston Studio, which did not renew its copyright when the initial copyright expired. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress and Wikimedia Commons.

In light of the economic, demographic and educational changes occurring in the United States, by proclamation on July 13, 1946, President Harry S. Truman instituted a Commission on Higher Education, and named George F. Zook, then president of the American Council on Education, as its Chair. Truman charged the Commission

“…to concern itself with the ways and means of expanding educational opportunities for all able young people; the adequacy of curricula, particularly in the fields of international affairs and social understanding; the desirability of establishing a series of intermediate technical institutes; and the financial structure of higher education with particular reference to the requirements for the expansion of physical facilities.”

In the Commission’s 1947 Report, Higher Education for Democracy, it was noted that

“Education is by far the biggest and the most hopeful of the Nation’s enterprises. Long ago our people recognized that education for all is not only democracy’s obligation but its necessity. Education is the foundation of democratic liberties. Without an education citizenry alert to preserve and extend freedom, it would not long endure.”

The last phrase echoes the words of President Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Address at the dedication of the Gettysburg Civil War Battlefield Cemetery.

In reflecting on President Truman’s charge to the Commission, the report stated that

“…the President’s Commission on Higher Education has attempted to select, from among the principal goals for higher education, those which should come first in our time. They are to bring all the 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 and to the administration of public affairs.”

In spite of the new frontiers in to which American Higher Education was being pushed by the perceived new national needs and the plethora of government commissions, reports, and programs, along with the burgeoning population growth engendered by the Baby Boom and subsequent diversification of the potential higher education clientele, AHE still proclaimed itself as the legitimate heir and guardian of the liberal arts tradition. The only concession that AHE seemed willing to make was the introduction of the new model of a liberal education to replace the declining model of the ancient liberal arts.

An illustration of the seven liberal arts from the 12th-century book Hortus Delicarum of Herrad of Landsberg. This image is in the public domain because it is a faithful photographic reproduction of a two-dimensional, public domain work of art. Image courtesy of Dnalor 01 and Wikimedia Commons.

The seven traditional liberal arts of Medieval times were divided into two parts. The first part was called the trivium, which consisted of three literary disciplines. The second part was called the quadrivium, which consisted of four quantitative disciplines.

The three literary disciplines were:

  • Grammar. This deals with the correct usage of language, both in speaking and writing.
  • Dialectic (or logic). This is correct thinking, helping an individual arrive at the truth.
  • Rhetoric. This concerns the expression of ideas, particularly through persuasion. It deals with ways of organizing thoughts in a speech or document so that people can understand your ideas and believe them.

The four quantitative or mathematical disciplines were:

  • Arithmetic. This deals with numbers and the simple operations involving numbers.
  • Geometry. This concerns spaces, spatial calculations, and spatial relationships.
  • Astronomy. This is the study of the stars. It is used for timekeeping, navigation, and developing a sense of place.
  • Music. This is the study of ratio, proportion, and sound as it is related to melody and song.

Prior to the 20th-century, with a few exceptions for professional and practical arts programs, American higher education followed the medieval liberal arts paradigm. In the 20th-century, American society transitioned from a rural and agricultural society to an urban and manufacturing culture. In response to these changes, AHE evolved along with them.

This chart is the blog author’s graphic interpretation of the 2002 definition of Liberal Education offered by the AAC&U. The chart was created using ClickChart software.

The 20th-century American higher education version of the liberal arts added several other components. These were usually framed in the sense of the answer to the question: “What foundation of general knowledge did a well-educated individual need?” These additions began with a solid grounding in the humanities and sciences, including history, philosophy, the social sciences, and the natural sciences. AHE invented the term liberal education in an attempt to describe this “slightly altered” form. To describe this new form of education, the term liberal designated the knowledge and values which freed up or liberated an individual to be more human or humane. The American Association of Colleges & Universities (AAC&U) took it upon itself to define more fully what the new liberal education should look like and involve.

American higher education became bifurcated and unapologetically splintered. While one side of campuses persisted as the solid, unyielding fortresses of the liberal arts and liberal education, the other side of campuses rapidly developed into the training ground of choice for a quickly and constantly changing workforce which needed professional, technical, and career knowledge and skills. Students flocked to American colleges and universities to study the practical arts and sciences (such as the agricultural sciences of horticulture and animal husbandry), engineering, technology, educational studies (such as pedagogy and curriculum), and career and professional studies (such as accounting, business administration, and management).

In each of the two camps of the liberal arts and the practical and professional studies, more fissures appeared. Both camps separated themselves into undergraduate and graduate schools. The undergraduate schools concentrated on providing students with basic post-secondary education, helping them acquire the skills and knowledge necessary for further study or to obtain the first position in their field. The graduate schools concentrated on assisting qualified students to do more in-depth study within their field and prepare themselves to add to the world’s knowledge base.

President John F. Kennedy speaking at Rice University on September 12, 1962. This image was originally posted to Flickr by NASA on The Commons at https://flickr.com/photos/44494372@N05/29533458786. It was reviewed on 15 September 2016 by FlickreviewR and was confirmed to be licensed under the terms of the No known copyright restrictions. Image courtesy of Flickr, NASA, and Wikimedia Commons.

American higher education had expanded its reach after the Civil War into the service arena with the Land Grant Act. University faculty were also drawn into national service through research projects directed toward the national defense in the lead up to WWII. After WWII these areas exploded. Rising revenues from government and industry sources transformed faculty research from an afterthought into a booming business.

President Kennedy was the superb politician and master of the one-liner. He spurred the nation into a service frenzy, with his “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” The peace corp, an outgrowth of Kennedy’s inaugural speech, became the embodiment of the ideals toward which the Morrill Act of a century earlier had pointed a growing nation.

Kennedy then jump-started the space race in his famous Rice University speech with the line:  “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard…” This challenge set the tone for a decade of exploits not only in space travel but many other areas of scientific and medical research in which American research universities led the way.

Picture of the University of Chicago as it may have appeared in 1900. The image by an unknown photographer. It is the public domain because it was published prior to 1916. Image courtesy of the University of Chicago and Wikimedia Commons.

The American research university came into being in the late 19th century as a few American institutions took the German Humboldt University model and put a new world twist on it. In February 1900, the presidents of five American universities (Chicago, Columbia, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and the University of California) invited the presidents of nine other universities (Catholic University of American, Clark, Cornell, Princeton, Stanford, University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania, University of Wisconsin – Madison, Yale) to meet at the University of Chicago to discuss plans to solidify the place and reputation of American universities in the research and higher education world. As a result of these discussions, the fourteen schools formed the Association of American Universities (AAU).

The initial agenda of the AAU included three items:

  1. to bring about “a greater uniformity of the conditions under which students may become candidates for higher degrees in different American universities, thereby solving the problem of migration,”
  2. to “raise the opinion entertained abroad of our own Doctor’s degree,” and
  3. to “raise the standard of our own weaker institutions.”

Throughout the first half of the 20th century, as the American research university matured, the unofficial agenda of the AAU became the following four points:

  • inspire research institutions to emphasize a distinction between preparatory studies and higher learning;
  • encourage research institutions to make the idea of advancing knowledge through specialized, original research a central tenant of their mission statements;
  • embolden research institutions to assure the independence of faculty and students in the area of intellectual inquiry (i.e., guarantee “academic freedom” in their studies)
  • exhort research institutions to provide the necessary institutional structure to fully support the “research ideal.”
Radar image of Tropical Storm Humberto approaching the United States along the Texas coastline in September 2007.  This image is in the public domain because it contains materials that originally came from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, taken or made as part of an employee’s official duties. Image courtesy of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Wikimedia Commons

After WWII, the AAU redoubled its efforts to push a “specialized research” and an “America first agenda.” Although world rankings of universities didn’t exist until several years into the 21st century, the 60 United States members of the AAU were recognized around the world as top-flight educational institutions. By 1975 these schools and many other American colleges were attracting students and faculty from every corner of the world.

To many inside and outside the American higher education community, the horizon for American higher education could not have looked brighter. However, to the critics and some commentators of AHE, warning signs abounded. There was a storm brewing that was just showing up on radar screens across American campuses. Just like the radar screenshot of Tropical Storm Humberto shown at the left, only small showers had landed prior to the approach of the massive body of the storm, which was getting ready to unload its full fury a short time later. Was the golden age of American higher education about to end? Spoiler alert: my next post in this series will focus on the disruptive forces which played havoc with American higher education from 1975 to the present.

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KPI – Part IX: Higher Education in Colonial America

Photographic print of elevation perspective of Harvard College or “Old College” (1636 – 1670) used in an article by Samuel E. Morison, published in 1920. The image is in the public domain. Image is used by courtesy of Samuel E. Morison, Harvard University Archives and Wikimedia Commons.

There are five distinct periods in the history of American higher education. In this post, we will look at the initial stage, which we will call the Colonial Period. The beginning date is easy to set. It starts with the founding of the first American college, Harvard College, in 1636. The end date is much harder to define. We will arbitrarily set the ending date of this stage as 1776, the start of the Revolutionary War. As we shall see, using these dates makes the Colonial Period the longest and least active stage in the history of American higher education.

The academy is well known for its showy, even often ostentatious traditions and “pomp and circumstance.” By “pomp and circumstance” I don’t mean the Elgar military marches played at graduation or commencement ceremonies.

One long-standing tradition of the academy involves the ceremonial inauguration of new presidents or the opening of a new college. To celebrate this joyous occasion, other colleges are invited to send a representative to share in the festivities.

An image of part of the academic procession at the opening of the new University of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland with the historic Inverness Castle as a background feature. The event took place on August 25, 2011. The photograph is by David Watmough. The image is courtesy of Dreamstime (ID #208851111)

 

These visiting representatives are expected to wear appropriate academic garb (their caps and gowns) and march into the ceremonial arena following the representatives of the new college or institution installing its new president. These representatives include the governing board, the president, high ranking officers of the college and the college faculty.

The representatives of guest colleges are lined up according to the founding date of the particular institution, with oldest first. Thus it becomes a bragging point to be near the beginning of the line. Many institutions take this so seriously that they “may stretch the truth a little.”

My alma mater, the University of Delaware, could be accused of falling prey to this practice. It lists its date of origin as 1743, which is embossed on its seal. This date would make it the eighth oldest college in the United States. In reality, according to its website the University of Delaware:

One of the oldest universities in the U.S., the University of Delaware traces its roots to 1743 when a petition by the Presbytery of Lewes expressing the need for an educated clergy led the Rev. Dr. Francis Alison to open a school in New London, Pennsylvania.

Newark Academy Building on Main Street in Newark, DE. The photograph is by a photographer identified as “smallbones” and is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. Image courtesy of “smallbones” and Wikimedia Commons.

In 1765, Rev. Alison’s elementary and secondary school relocated to Newark, DE, as the Newark Academy. It wasn’t until 1834 when the name was changed to Newark College that the institution offered college degrees. In 1843, the name of the institution was changed to Delaware College. Throughout all of its earliest history, the institution was opened only to men. In 1914, a women’s college was opened in Newark. The two colleges merged in 1921 to become the University of Delaware. I’ll let you decide: What date should the University of Delaware use as its date of founding?

So as to not be accused of just jumping on the University of Delaware, of the 18 American colleges or universities that list a founding date prior to 1776, only ten were actually conferring college degrees in 1776. These ten colonial colleges with dates of their founding are:

  • Harvard University. MA (1636)
  • College of William and Mary, VA (1693)
  • Yale University, CT (1701)
  • University of Pennsylvania, PA (1740)
  • Princeton University, NJ (1746)
  • Columbia University, NY (1754)
  • Brown University, RI (1764)
  • Rutgers University, NJ (1766)
  • Dartmouth College, NH (1769)
  • Hampden-Syndey College, VA (1775)

The eight institutions which list a date of origin prior to 1776, but didn’t offer programs leading to college degrees until after 1776, are the following:

  • St. Johns’ College, MD (Est 1693/ College 1785)
  • Washington College, MD (Est 1723/ College 1782)
  • Moravian College, PA (Est 1742/ College 1863)
  • University of Delaware, DE (Est 1743/ College 1843)
  • Washington & Lee University, PA (Est 1749/ College 1813)
  • College of Charleston, SC (Est 1770/ College 1790)
  • Salem College, NC (Est 1772/ College 1890)
  • Dickinson College, PA (Est 1773/ College 1783)
A photograph of the doomers, gables, and spires of Salem College. The photograph was taken by Larry F. Lamb and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. The image is used by courtesy of Larry F. Lamb and Wikimedia Commons.

As a mathematician, I am always looking for patterns. In the case of these pre-revolutionary war colleges, several patterns are immediately obvious. All 18 institutions were founded by clergy or religious organizations for partially sectarian reasons. The primary religious reason was to provide an educated clergy for the churches. Since the pre-revolutionary war clergy was all male, it should not be surprising that 16 of the 18 colleges were strictly male institutions. The only two schools which enrolled women were the two Moravian institutions, Moravian College and Salem College.

Photograph of Randolph Hall, the main academic building of the College of Charleston. The photograph was taken by a photographer identified as Lkeadle who licensed its use under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Image courtesy of Lkeadle and Wikimedia Commons.

Interestingly those are only two that have maintained their religious affiliations. The other 16 either dropped their religious ties or had their support cut off by their founding denominations. Thirteen of these schools changed their classification to “private, non-profit“.  Two of the schools, Rutgers University (NJ) and the University of Delaware (DE) became public institutions supported by their respective states. The College of Charleston (SC) became the first college in the United States to be recognized as a municipally supported school.

Later, when the State of Delaware cut its monetary support of the University to less than 50% of the University’s budgeted income, it took a drastic step which defined a new status of educational institutions. The University of Delaware became the first college to become a private institution with limited state support. It was now known as a “state-supported institution.” Since that event, many other public schools have taken the same stance.

Another characteristic shared by all 18 pre-revolutionary war colleges is that they all began as exclusively residential or boarding schools. Most of the founding fathers of these schools were educated in England or Europe or were swayed by teachers or mentors who were trained in the “old-school” tradition.

William and Mary College 1898 postcard. The hand-written note says this main building was built in 1693 when the college opened. This image is available from the New York Public Library’s Digital Library under the digital ID 0ad0c090-c62c-012f-9c5a-58d385a7bc34: digitalgallery.nypl.org → digitalcollections.nypl.org. Image courtesy of New York Public Library and Wikimedia Commons.

The “old-school” traditions imparted two patterns into the fabric of these schools. The first was the idea that these schools were not about promoting or advocating social mobility. These schools were not founded to change society, but to maintain the social status of the day. After their religious ties were severed, their students were strictly the sons of the wealthy, politically connected, and social elite of the day.

These were the only families that could afford the cost of such an education. These families were also the most interested in preparing their sons to claim their birthright and seize their rightful place as leaders of the church, government, and business. It is interesting to read excerpts of early promotional pieces of these institutions and see how many advertised the alumni who were instrumental in the founding of America. They listed the signers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, as well as federal, state and municipal elected and appointed officials as their most distinguished graduates.

The second pattern inherently obvious among the colonial colleges is the emphasis of their curricula on the liberal arts. Many of these colleges evolved from institutions that were called “Free Academies.”  The term free definitely did not refer to the cost of attending the school. The term refers to the liberal arts or those subjects which humanize people and make them more human.

The curricula were heavily loaded with rhetoric, languages, religion, philosophy, history, music, mathematics and elementary science. In the colonial period, there were no professional schools. The professional disciplines were not taught at the colonial colleges.

Students who were interested in business, law, and medicine learned these “trades” by serving as interns to accomplished masters. The professional schools entered the American higher education scene in the next period of American higher education history, the Period of Post-Revolutionary War Expansion. That period will be the subject of my next blog post, due to be published, Tuesday, April 9th.

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Basketball, Billboards, and Promises We Can’t Keep: a Problem in Higher Education.

My chronic fatigue still has me falling asleep “on the job.” Image courtesy of Presenter Media.

In spite of several excellent nights of sleep according to the data from my BiPAP breathing machine which is supposed to be helping me, I’m still fighting severe chronic fatigue. Thus, I’m not ready to publish the promised second post in my series on Key Performance Indicators. Therefore, I am very happy that Erik Benson, a guest author of two previous posts (Where are you? Cultural intelligence and successful leadership in a university context and  The Value of the Liberal Arts to the University), has volunteered to jump in with his essay below that actually fits very well with some of the directions I intended to pursue in my future posts.

Basketball, Billboards, and Promises We Can’t Keep: A Problem in Higher Education

In the movie White Men Can’t Jump, the two main characters (played by Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson) meet on a basketball court. Snipes’ character sizes up Harrelson’s as an easy mark for a hustle but needs some cash to place his bet. He assures his friend who stakes him the money that they will go out for dinner with the winnings. He soon discovers, however, that he has been hustled, and cannot make good on the promise of dinner.

Besides appealing to By’s passion for basketball, this anecdote is a classic example of making a promise one can’t keep. While funny in a movie, it is also a sad reality in higher education. There is a common expectation that a college education guarantees one a job for life. Yet a wide array of sources, from systematic surveys to social media, reveal that many college graduates (and their parents) have been left feeling that this promise has gone unmet. The college graduate who is struggling to find a job and has moved back in with his or her parents has become a common cliché.

This cliché is not baseless, nor is it limited to the “usual suspects.” As Derek Newton notes in a 2018 article in Forbes magazine, liberal arts majors are popularly associated with the college-educated Starbucks barista. Yet a recent study of the employment prospects of college graduates yielded some surprising results. It focused on underemployment, which refers to people with jobs “for which they are overqualified.”

The study revealed that a surprisingly large number of graduates with majors in business and health-related fields were underemployed, even five years after graduation. Newton observes, “In other words, for every cliché of a barista or bartender with a liberal arts degree, there were ten with a degree in business.” Considering that business or health-related fields are often sold as “safe” career choices, the reality must be shocking for many graduates. Little wonder, then, that many have growing doubts about the efficacy of a college education.

Popular manifestations of this are readily evident. Mike Rowe, the face of such shows as Dirty Jobs, is but one of the critics questioning the conventional wisdom about college education. Rowe emphasizes that he is not “anti-college,” but that he has a problem with the overwhelming push to get young people to go to college. For one thing, not everyone is “cut out” for college. For another, there are many unfilled jobs that do not require a college education, but simply some vocational training and a willingness to work. Coupled with the high cost of college, the intense pressure on young people to go is even more inexplicable. In sum, the ideal that is sold doesn’t match reality.

Rowe is not a lone voice. Even within higher education ranks, doubts abound. In a 2018 piece on the state of higher education for Christian Scholar’s Review, Jack R. Baker and Jeffrey Bilbro comment on seeing a slew of billboards along I-94 in southern Michigan for numerous institutions (including their own) rife with promises of fulfilling jobs, careers, and lives. The fact that each makes the same promise of a unique or distinctive experience is remarkably ironic. Their experience is anything but unique. Such billboards abound across the country and are but one venue of the onslaught; television, radio, laptops, and electronic devices are all flooded with such sales pitches. My own institution has ads that pop up on seemingly every webpage, and billboards throughout western Michigan trumpeting a 94% job placement rate for graduates and a chance at “a life that matters.”

This points to additional promises colleges make beyond material rewards. They offer assurances about safety, significance, and future fulfillment. Whatever the slogan, graduates are assured of a life of adventure and significance. Of course, this ties in with material results; few likely envision a life of significance as a barista. Yet there are non-material results. Christian colleges have long been seen as being an ideal venue for finding a spouse. However, besides the fact that this is not the institution’s reason for being, this ideal runs afoul of such realities as student demographics. Still, this is on oft-repeated sales pitches to potential students and their parents. Of course, this has been part of a larger narrative of Christian colleges as “safe havens” for students. This is a big selling point for parents who fear what their children will be exposed to at a state institution, and who thus want assurances that their children won’t be challenged regarding their beliefs. In fairness, on the flip side, many state institutions are marketing much the same idea of being “safe places,” albeit under different guises. Yet the reality is that a good college education exposes one to different people, divergent ideas, and deep thinking, none of which are “safe.” Put simply, we will disappoint those to whom we make that promise.

The tendency to make promises that cannot be kept poses a big problem for higher education. The more it is done, the more the narrative of unfulfilled promises is fed, the more doubts about the value of a college degree rise, and the more downward pressure we will see on enrollment. Put simply, the “brand” will lose its credibility, and “sales” will reflect this. It is a tendency that needs to be broken, and the starting point for doing so is to acknowledge and engage with reality, as we are doing in this forum.

References:

The Permanent Detour: Underemployment’s Long-Term Effects on the Careers of College Grads (Boston: Burning Glass Technologies, 2018).  

Jack R. Baker and Jeffry Bilbro, “How Wendell Berry Helps Universities Inhabit Their Places,” Christian Scholar’s Review 47:4 (Summer 2018), 415-22.

Derek Newton, “It’s Not Liberal Arts and Literature Majors Who Are Most Underemployed,” Forbes 31 May 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereknewton/2018/05/31/its-not-liberal-arts-and-literature-majors-who-are-most-underemployed/#7959111911de (accessed 11 February 2019).

Mike Rowe, “Mistaken Stance on the Importance of Higher Education,” Mike Rowe (17 July 2017). http://mikerowe.com/2017/07/otw-mistakenstanceonimportanceofcollegeed/ (Accessed 31 January 2019).

 

Erik and I trust that this post has provoked some thinking on your part and we hope that you will let us know those thoughts via the comment section below. At this point, I make no promises concerning my next post other than to say it will either be a follow-up to Erik’s post or the second post in my Key Performance Indicators series. Even after 10.3 hours of sleep last night, according to the readout on my BiPAP, my body is telling me it’s time for a nap. Until next time, I’ll snore away!

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The Value of the Liberal Arts to the University

I have invited a friend and former colleague, Erik Benson,  to offer the first guest post on By’s Musings.  I first met Erik when I hired him at Cornerstone University in 2005. I was immediately impressed with this history instructor who brought history to life in the classroom and in the field. Less than one year later when I started CELT, the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching at Cornerstone University,  he was an obvious choice to be part of the faculty leadership group.  He has continued to impress students and colleagues at CU, where in 2013, he was voted “Professor of the Year.” He is currently Associate Professor of History, at CU, and Principal of ipsative, a company focusing on educational consulting and faculty development. If you would like to find out more about ipsative, please visit their website at ipsative.

This post grew out of a challenge that I set before Erik. Since I have been working on a project attempting to represent the many cultures that come together to form a university, I asked him to describe the ideal culture of history within the university setting. He eagerly took the challenge and expanded it to set history within the broader category of humanities and the liberal arts. This is the Erik that I knew at Cornerstone University. At least once a month, he would come by my office near the close of the day, stand in the open doorway, and ask, “Do you have a minute?” I almost always said, “Yes”, even though I know that the minute would end up more like an hour. Erik always had challenging questions about higher education in general and our university in particular. Together, we were working toward solutions for the tough, intractable problems facing higher education and our students. Some of those discussions are among my most memorable memories of my days at CU.

Without further ado, here is Erik’s post.

For what it’s worth: the value of the liberal arts to the university.

The last year has seen a seemingly endless stream of controversies in higher education. Among these were proposals to channel more government aid to students studying in “STEM” (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) fields, at the expense of those studying in the liberal arts. In Kentucky, the governor recently suggested that students studying “French literature” should not receive any state financial aid.

Debt, jobs, and basements…
The arguments are pretty straightforward. STEM fields are more promising in terms of jobs for graduates, and there is an unmet demand in the US for people trained in these fields. Amidst public concerns about escalating college costs and the resulting student debt, governments ought to insure that they fund fields best suited to meet the needs of both employers and graduates.
There is a certain logic to this. The public concern about tuition and student debt is undeniable. Furthermore, evidence abounds that there is indeed a demand for workers in STEM fields that promise large salaries upon graduation. (In fact, there is high demand for workers in skilled trades that do not require a college degree at all. A Michigan factory owner recently told me recently that he cannot hire enough skilled tradespeople, even though he actively recruits throughout the US and abroad.) In turn, the numbers are less promising for those graduating with liberal arts degrees. The anecdote of the humanities graduate moving back into the parents’ basement has become popular lore. In sum, the desire to channel students toward STEM majors seems a perfectly reasonable response.

Not so fast…
Yet in fact this response is ill-considered. For one thing, it is based on the premise that US colleges are churning out a slew of (unemployed) liberal arts majors. As Fareed Zakaria notes in his book, In Defense of a Liberal Education, between 1971 and 2012, the number of graduates with degrees in English fell from 7.6 to 3.0 percent; the number of business graduates rose from 13.7 to 20.5 percent. Only one-third of all degrees were in fields that could be classified as “liberal arts,” and this number was matched by business and health majors alone. In short, the stories of hordes of unemployed liberal arts graduates living in their parents’ basements are exaggerated.
Beyond this dubious premise, the fact is that the liberal arts approach in American higher education has served students well. Zakaria contrasts it with European higher education systems, in which students are channeled into specific vocations well before they reach college age; those that go to college are few, and they receive a rather narrowly focused training in a field. In the US, college education has historically been more “general” in focus due to being in a dynamic, changing economy and society. In short, the liberal arts have prepared American graduates to be more responsive and flexible in a changing world.
Zakaria points to a real strength of the American liberal arts education, as both anecdotal and statistical evidence attests. Numerous studies reveal that graduates with liberal arts degrees actually have fiscally rewarding careers. One such study, published in the Chronicle of Higher Education in 2014, found that while liberal arts graduates initially lagged behind professional and pre-professional peers in salaries, over time they caught up and passed them. The study noted that this was due in no small part to graduate degrees earned by liberal arts majors, which enhanced their earning ability. (Interestingly, even in pre-professional and professional fields, a comparable percentage had a graduate degree, suggesting they too received an earnings boost from this.) Still, only the most short-sighted of people would argue a degree outside the liberal arts is a better financial bet; in fact, considering the investment a college education entails, one ought to be considering long-term earnings forecasts rather than merely the entry-level job, which seems to be the focus of the moment.

On second thought…
Why liberal arts degrees offer such long-term earning possibilities is an interesting question. The answer seems to lie in what Zakaria points out—they better prepare one for a changing environment. Vocationally focused educations prepare one for a specific job or career track that can be lucrative at the entry level, but may limit one’s advancement possibilities over time. (Put simply, one might be trained to press certain buttons, but that likely will not lead to workplace advancement.) Worse, as technological and business advances change the workplace, jobs and entire career tracks can come and go. As Thomas Friedman points out in The Earth is Flat, many programming jobs in the US have easily been outsourced to Asia, and won’t be coming back any time soon in light of the cost differentials. This is why many who train in narrowly tailored fields have found it necessary to return to college later in life—their education did not prepare them for the change. Lest we think we can anticipate much of this change, consider how many jobs and fields exist today that educators and politicians could not even fathom 20 years ago. As a senior vice president at the Association of American Colleges and Universities admitted, “We are not good at predicting what jobs are going to be required in five years and 10 years down the road.” It is simply not a reasonable expectation.
My wife’s career experience attests to many of the above points. A graduate of a liberal arts college with a major in history and international studies, she went on to earn an M.A. in Mass Communication. She since has worked in both higher education and marketing, and currently has a thriving business in content strategy and writing. Her mass communication degree offered her hands-on experience in the then-emerging field of web design and development, which cued her into the new forms of media. That said, a significant portion of the technical knowledge she gained is now outdated because of the rapid advances in the last decade. She actually points to her B.A. as being more valuable and foundational for her career. Her studies in history and global culture ingrained in her a broader, more strategic perspective. She also credits them for making her a good writer, which is her “bread and butter” today. Finally, they made her more self-aware and confident, all of which led her to easily transition between jobs and career tracks without need of returning to school. In short, she epitomizes what Zakaria says about the liberals arts—it made her responsive and adaptable in a changing world.

Making the case…
While studies exist of the earning power of the liberal arts, and many faculty can cite numerous anecdotes of successful graduates, there has been a general failure to “sell” this to politicians and the public. Many in “liberal arts” fields lack an interest in informing potential students, their parents, and the public at large the career possibilities (or even proudly resist the idea). Too often, the “case” consists of rather ethereal assertions about the value of the liberal arts, the “life of the mind,” and avoiding vocational obsession, none of which are wrong, but which are not applicable for many considering college, with its expense and commitment. In short, we need to do a better job making the case.
In my case, I have occasion to meet with prospective students and parents who visit our campus. I emphasize that the study of history offers them much in terms of “life of the mind,” but also in terms of career preparation. In addition to citing studies on earnings (which many do not know), I explain specifically what history offers to them—highly transferable skills in research, critical thinking, and communication which will be proven useful over time in a constantly changing job market. I point out that these not only work for someone who might pursue a traditional career in the field (e.g. academia), but also someone working in marketing or government. I encourage them to think of how they might pair the study of history with a major or minor in another field, such as business. I even encourage students in other majors (such as business) to meet credit requirements with an applicable history course; I’ve had a number of graduates tell me this turned out to be one of the most useful things they did in college. In short, I can show them the practical benefits of their study—and they usually come to see the value.
Ultimately, in considering the issue of financing higher education and the liberal arts, the real consideration ought not be mere cost, but value. People will pay more for something they believe is worth it; they are bothered when they feel they have paid for something that is not worth it. We in academics need to make a better case for the value of the liberal arts to students.

References:
Patricia Cohen, “A Rising Call to Promote STEM Education and Cut Liberal Arts Funding,” New York Times (22 February 2016), B1.

Thomas Friedman, The Earth is Flat (Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 2006).

Beckie Supiano, “How Liberal-Arts Majors Fare over the Long Haul,” The Chronicle of Higher Education (22 January 2014). http://chronicle.com/article/How-Liberal-Arts-Majors-Fare/144133 (Accessed 1 March 2016).

Fareed Zakaria, In Defense of a Liberal Education (W.W. Norton and Co., 2015).

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Skeletons in the Closet–The Academy as a Metaphor

I began this series of postings with the intent of following the historical development of liberal education and colleges. The first posting focused on the ancient Greeks and a difference of understanding among some of the leading ancient Greek philosophers as to what constituted liberal education and for whom it was designed.

         In that first posting I indicated that I would continue the series by looking at the development of liberal arts through the early Roman civilization, the medieval times and the European Renaissance. However, I have found that I must take several small detours.

There are several reasons I have decided on these detours. The first reason is that as I have become more accustomed to my metaphoric world I have discovered how deeply our language is built on metaphors. In my exploration of metaphors, I came across a real eye opener of an information source in James Geary’s book, “I is an Other: The Secret Life of Metaphor and How it Shapes the Way We See the World.” Geary is a journalist and also New York Times Bestselling author of “The World in a Phrase.”

In preparation for his books, Geary did extensive study of language and the way we use it. As a result of that study, he concludes that metaphors are as old as language itself. As I have studied learning theory, I believe we must conclude that we learn by comparing and linking the unknown and new with the known and old. Therefore, metaphor was a way of thought long before it was a way with words.

As one of his major sources of information and examples in “I is an Other,” Geary relied on the archaeologist and expert on ancient languages, A. H. Sayce. Sayce estimated that three-fourths of our language consists of metaphors; some of which are active, while many are worn-out or whose origins are buried. The worn out metaphors could also be labeled as dormant. I was very skeptical of Sayce’s estimate of the extent of metaphors until I looked at the examples Sayce and Geary presented. I began to see how almost everything I said was based on a metaphor, long before I took up residence in a metaphoric world.

         I should not have been surprised that three-quarters of our words have a metaphor somewhere in their history. Learning theory tells us that we learn by tying something new and unknown to something old and known. A metaphor attempts to help us understand one thing or concept by comparing it to something we already know. Thus we build new concepts and words via a metaphoric process.

         If three-quarters of our words are based on metaphors, what are the implications for our understanding of liberal arts colleges? Thus, my first detour will be to investigate the metaphors upon which liberal arts education is built. In my investigation, I found that all of the followings words are built on metaphors: liberal, arts, sciences, literal, truth, academic, scholastic, education, knowledge, idea, conceives, and college. In my next posting, I will look at the metaphoric foundations of these terms.

As I previously indicated, I thought following the development of liberal arts and liberal arts colleges through history would be a straight path. However, as I looked at the history of liberal arts throughout history, I found it more resembled a cow path meandering through a pasture, among Western and non-Western civilizations. Living next to farms for many years, the only two times I ever saw a cow walk in a straight line were: 1) when it was feeding time and new food had just been dumped into the feed trough; and 2) when cows were entering the barn at milking time and they headed straight for their assigned milking stations.

If the history of liberal arts does not flow in a straight line, to more fully understand liberal arts and liberal arts colleges and follow their development, I have decided that I needed to meander through history and non-Western civilizations with them. Some of my upcoming postings will feature those meanderings. As with most detours, I believe that we will eventually end up at the desired location.

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Skeletons in the Closets of American Liberal Arts Colleges – Part I

To truly understand the American Liberal Arts Colleges, we need to go back to the origin of the concept of Liberal Arts, and work our way forward through history. Many modern authors attribute the concept of Liberal Arts to the ancient Greeks. However, it wasn’t until the Middle Ages that the actual phrase Liberal Arts gained much traction. The Latin expression artes liberales referred to the branches of knowledge that were reserved for free men in ancient Greece and Rome. Other forms of learning were reserved for slaves to prepare them to gain a livelihood or to assist in the economic pursuits of their masters. Although many ancient Greeks held this view of the liberal arts, this understanding was most definitely a Roman construct. Rome, as was their style, would borrow anything from the Greek civilization that they thought worked well, or could be modified slightly for their benefit.

         Instead of reserving certain aspects of education for free men, and relegating other aspects to slaves, Aristotle held an opposing view. Aristotle believed that  there were three primary forms of knowledge. Each of the three has its own  unique avenue of approach. Aristotle believed that all free men should be  exposed to and gain some proficiency in all three forms of knowledge. Aristotle  was not opposed to opening up all education to slaves and women. Aristotle also  believed that any slave or woman who showed a propensity to a particular form  of knowledge should be permitted and encouraged to pursue it. The first of Aristotle’s three forms of knowledge was theoria, which is the word from which we get our words theory or theoretical. The way to approach theoria, was contemplative reflection on sensory observations. Aristotle and all other Greek philosophers of his day held that theoria was the highest form of knowledge and should be reserved only for those who could demonstrate a genuine proclivity to it. Aristotle was quite firm in his belief that if someone could not demonstrate a superior level of ability in the elementary search for theoria, that individual should  be relegated to a pursuit of the other two forms of knowledge or to a life of service in the military.

The second of the three forms of knowledge was poiesis, which meant creation of a product of value, and is the word from which we get our words poetical and poetry. All students of Aristotle had to create products of value. Aristotle believed that this process would help students develop a system of values that was their own and not imposed on them by someone else.

The third form of knowledge was praxis, which meant doing, and is the word from which we get our words practice and practical. All students of Aristotle had to participate in practical or experiential exercises. These exercises might be related to a piece of theoretical knowledge or a particular value, or pertain to a new lesson Aristotle wanted the students to learn. Sometimes the exercises preceded the development of the theoretical knowledge or value. At other times the exercises followed the development of  knowledge or a value. You may know all the rules of rhetoric, but to really know, rhetoric you have to practice it. At times you can learn to write poetry by intuiting the rules of poetry by writing poetry. Almost always to create a poem of great value, you have to repeatedly write poems.

Most Greek philosophers held the position that theoria was to be reserved for free men. They also maintained that free men should be excused from poiesis and praxis, which were reserved for slaves. Aristotle encouraged all free men to participate in both forms of experiential learning, poiesis and praxis. For Aristotle, an  educated man had to possess content, skills and values. An educated man had to develop his head, his hands and his heart.