What is a liberal arts education? William Cronon (to me) gave the best description of a liberal arts degree and what makes a student liberally educated. Cronon stated that “Freedom and Growth; are values when we speak of a liberal education” (5). I believe that to be liberally educated you must be able to grow on things you 've learned, branch out in a sense. It’s not about how you learn, it’s what you learn and how you use what you learn that makes you liberally educated. Many people ask why a…
Doing College the Liberal Arts Way: A Response to, ‘What do you do with a B.A. in history?’ Liberal Education is an approach to learning that empowers individuals and prepares them to deal with complexity, diversity, and change. Ken Saxon, a graduate student from Princeton, presents his ideas about students taking this approach to college in his writing titled, “What do you do with a B.A. in history?” It discusses how students with knowledge of the wider world are more prepared for life after…
Hendrix makes a commitment to cultivating graduates that are more than intelligent. In doing so, the institution recognizes that understanding perspectives is an integral part of life and actively aims to develop this ability in its students. The liberal arts cover a wide array of topics that vary from the abstract to the concrete and that require mature thought and…
The presentation “A Liberal Use of ‘Liberal Arts’” by Matt Kirk, is a presentation teaching the audience about the classical view of liberal arts, specifically the trivium. The speaker then explains how the trivium disappeared from current education. Finally, the speaker calls for modern education to use elements of the classical liberal education, in order to make education stronger. The visual aid was very effectively used to create a guide for the audience to follow. The slides contained…
education. By learning to subject through the lens at different disciples you truly understand it. A liberal arts education is multipdisplinary, it encourages to venture outside you major and make connections back to it in other fields. It is argued that a liberal arts education creates a more well-rounded student, a student who with better reasoning, communication skills and social skills. “A liberal arts education is valuable because it teaches students to ask questions that matter, to weigh…
around us, which has its own privileges and burdens that come along with the knowledge. The purpose of higher education is to expand the students’ comprehension of a subject of their choice while making sure they become well rounded individuals. A liberal arts education produces students with a broader self-awareness, which can cause a generation of students that have minimal knowledge on a wide variety of topics, and this can be beneficial in the broadening of people’s world view. One of the…
the Arts involves taking courses in what are traditionally referred to as the “liberal arts”. The main area of study for these courses are literature, art history, philosophy, economics, languages, and so on. The scope of liberal arts is generally not to train you for a specific job, but more importantly prepares you to for a career, serving an invaluable set of skills, which includes the ability to think for yourself, communicate effectively, and the capacity for lifelong learning. A liberal…
obtained a college education. He points out that by the time students finishes eighth grade, they should already have learned all the “core knowledge” they need to know (236). By the time they get to high school, students should be focusing more on the liberal aspect of education by taking courses in the “humanities, social sciences, and sciences” where they are “taught at a level below the demand…
are the men who wrote the Great Books, which are the liberal arts curriculum. The men formed by the Great Books have been the great minds of countless ages: Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln. My admiration of some of these men's skills, particularly my enjoyment of fine literature, was in many ways my first taste of the liberal arts. Due to a strong Catholic upbringing, I enjoyed my theology classes, and came to more of the arts through history and philosophy, as well as…
What Does a Liberal Education Mean? There are many differing opinions regarding the definition and value of a liberal education. Cronon (1998) refutes the notion that a liberal education “indoctrinates students in the values of political liberalism.” Olsen (2012) on the other hand, agrees with Rick Santorum’s opinion of colleges enforcing what he calls a “politically correct left doctrine”. Delbanco (2012) also disagrees with the indoctrination concept arguing that all institutions “have a…