Changing Higher Ed Preserving Democracy: The Vital Role of Liberal Arts in Higher Education
The liberal arts are currently under fire in higher education, with Marymount University in Virginia recently eliminating nine such undergraduate degrees. But should most colleges and universities follow suit, it would harm democracy in America, according to Jeff Scheuer, author of Inside the Liberal Arts: Critical Thinking and Citizenship.
"There's no way a democracy can function based on people who only have technical knowledge and no citizenship skills."
In this podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton talks with Jeffrey Scheuer about what role the liberal arts should play in relation to STEM and vocational education, how liberal arts help graduates become better citizens, what courses fall within the jurisdiction of the liberal arts, and why the liberal arts are and should remain engrained in the American identity.
Highlights
- Inside the Liberal Arts identifies the three main areas of citizenship: economic, civic, and cultural. Without the liberal arts, the cultural and civic aspects of citizenship would be lost.
- Citizenship is any transaction between the individual and society that includes both give and take.
- The civic domain includes voting, serving on juries, signing petitions, and anything performed in the civic arena that provides input. The cultural domain consists of the arts and religious and sports institutions because they are all part of the public arena.
- The Liberal Arts isn't limited to the humanities. The social sciences, including economics and the natural sciences, especially when dealing with technology and climate change, are part of the liberal arts. Law courses should also be prerequisites since everyone is affected by and lives under the law and, therefore, should gain a sense of what the law entails.
- Businesses are looking for liberal arts graduates, not necessarily people who studied business. Similarly, editors are looking for liberal arts majors, not journalism majors, because they have broader educations.
- Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, who founded the precursor to the University of Pennsylvania, believed that higher education was more than just a pre-professional exercise.
- The US became a superpower in the last 170 years since the Civil War, with primarily a liberal arts model of higher education.
- Another book that complements Inside the Liberal Arts is After the Ivory Tower Falls by Will Bunch, which is a history of the lost vision of the GI Bill.
#LiberalArts #ChangingHigherEd #HigherEdPodcast
About Our Podcast Guest
Jeffrey Scheuer
Acclaimed author and freelance writer Jeffrey Scheuer is an information ecosystem expert. Top press professionals and elite educators have sought Scheuer's insight on media, politics, and — most recently — higher education. He's on a mission to illuminate for society what it means to think critically and live as an educated citizen in a thriving democracy. His new book "Inside the Liberal Arts: Critical Thinking and Citizenship" is the only book to systematically relate the liberal arts to thinking rationally and critically. In under 200 pages, "Inside the Liberal Arts" outlines the history, conceptual core, and critical democratic role of liberal education. Scheuer takes liberal arts educators, students, media, and consumers through an exploration of the role of higher education in democracy.
Scheuer writes mainly about politics, media, history, and education. His first book, The Sound Bite Society (1999) was named a Choice "Outstanding Academic Title." He is also the author of The Big Picture: Why Democracies Need Journalistic Excellence (2007). He has published essays, articles, reviews and commentary in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and some two dozen other daily newspapers, and has also published in Dissent, The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, Gettysburg Review, Potomac Review, Wilson Quarterly, Nieman Reports, Philosophy Now, Private Pilot, and elsewhere.
He lives in pre-Civil War houses that he renovated in New York and West Tisbury, MA.
About the Host
Dr. Drumm McNaughton, the host of Changing Higher Ed®, is a consultant to higher ed institutions in the areas of governance, accreditation, strategy and change, and mergers. To learn more about his services and other thought leadership pieces, visit his firm's website, https://changinghighered.com/.
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