In Defense of a Liberal Education

In Defense of a Liberal Education
Author: Fareed Zakaria
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 93
Release: 2015-03-30
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0393247694

CNN host and best-selling author Fareed Zakaria argues for a renewed commitment to the world’s most valuable educational tradition. The liberal arts are under attack. The governors of Florida, Texas, and North Carolina have all pledged that they will not spend taxpayer money subsidizing the liberal arts, and they seem to have an unlikely ally in President Obama. While at a General Electric plant in early 2014, Obama remarked, "I promise you, folks can make a lot more, potentially, with skilled manufacturing or the trades than they might with an art history degree." These messages are hitting home: majors like English and history, once very popular and highly respected, are in steep decline. "I get it," writes Fareed Zakaria, recalling the atmosphere in India where he grew up, which was even more obsessed with getting a skills-based education. However, the CNN host and best-selling author explains why this widely held view is mistaken and shortsighted. Zakaria eloquently expounds on the virtues of a liberal arts education—how to write clearly, how to express yourself convincingly, and how to think analytically. He turns our leaders' vocational argument on its head. American routine manufacturing jobs continue to get automated or outsourced, and specific vocational knowledge is often outdated within a few years. Engineering is a great profession, but key value-added skills you will also need are creativity, lateral thinking, design, communication, storytelling, and, more than anything, the ability to continually learn and enjoy learning—precisely the gifts of a liberal education. Zakaria argues that technology is transforming education, opening up access to the best courses and classes in a vast variety of subjects for millions around the world. We are at the dawn of the greatest expansion of the idea of a liberal education in human history.

Liberal Education and the Public Interest

Liberal Education and the Public Interest
Author: James O. Freedman
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
Total Pages: 161
Release: 2005-05
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1587294222

In 1996 James Freedman published Idealism and Liberal Education, which discussed the ideals that shaped his life as an intellectual, a law professor, and a college and university president. In this new collection of essays, he convincingly explores his firm belief that a liberal education is the “surest instrument yet devised for developing those civilizing qualities of mind and character that enable men and women to lead satisfying lives and to make significant contributions to a democratic society.” Freedman concentrates directly upon the problems facing university presidents and all university administrators. A passionate and beautifully written argument for the benefits of a liberal education, this book

The Politics of Liberal Education

The Politics of Liberal Education
Author: Darryl Gless
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 324
Release: 1992
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9780822311997

Controversy over what role “the great books” should play in college curricula and questions about who defines “the literary canon” are at the forefront of debates in higher education. The Politics of Liberal Education enters this discussion with a sophisticated defense of educational reform in response to attacks by academic traditionalists. The authors here—themselves distinguished scholars and educators—share the belief that American schools, colleges, and universities can do a far better job of educating the nation’s increasingly diverse population and that the liberal arts must play a central role in providing students with the resources they need to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing world. Within this area of consensus, however, the contributors display a wide range of approaches, illuminating the issues from the perspectives of their particular disciplines—classics, education, English, history, and philosophy, among others—and their individual experiences as teachers. Among the topics they discuss are canon-formation in the ancient world, the idea of a “common culture,” and the educational implications of such social movements as feminism, technological changes including computers and television, and intellectual developments such as “theory.” Readers interested in the controversies over American education will find this volume an informed alternative to sensationalized treatments of these issues. Contributors. Stanley Fish, Phyllis Franklin, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Henry A. Giroux, Darryl J. Gless, Gerald Graff, Barbara Herrnstein Smith, George A. Kennedy, Bruce Kuklick, Richard A. Lanham, Elizabeth Kamarck Minnich, Alexander Nehamas, Mary Louise Pratt, Richard Rorty, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick

Beyond the University

Beyond the University
Author: Michael S. Roth
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2014-05-28
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0300206550

Contentious debates over the benefits—or drawbacks—of a liberal education are as old as America itself. From Benjamin Franklin to the Internet pundits, critics of higher education have attacked its irrelevance and elitism—often calling for more vocational instruction. Thomas Jefferson, by contrast, believed that nurturing a student’s capacity for lifelong learning was useful for science and commerce while also being essential for democracy. In this provocative contribution to the disputes, university president Michael S. Roth focuses on important moments and seminal thinkers in America’s long-running argument over vocational vs. liberal education. Conflicting streams of thought flow through American intellectual history: W. E. B. DuBois’s humanistic principles of pedagogy for newly emancipated slaves developed in opposition to Booker T. Washington’s educational utilitarianism, for example. Jane Addams’s emphasis on the cultivation of empathy and John Dewey’s calls for education as civic engagement were rejected as impractical by those who aimed to train students for particular economic tasks. Roth explores these arguments (and more), considers the state of higher education today, and concludes with a stirring plea for the kind of education that has, since the founding of the nation, cultivated individual freedom, promulgated civic virtue, and instilled hope for the future.

The Demands of Liberal Education

The Demands of Liberal Education
Author: Meira Levinson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 250
Release: 1999-09-23
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0198295448

The Demands of Liberal Education analyses and applies contemporary liberal political theory to certain key problems within the field of educational theory. Levinson examines problems centred around determining appropriate educational aims, content and institutional structure and argues that liberal governments should exercise a much greater control over education than they now do. Combining theoretical with empirical research, this book will interest and provoke scholars,policy makers, educators, parents, and all citizens interested in education politics.

Why the Humanities Matter Today

Why the Humanities Matter Today
Author: Lee Trepanier
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 168
Release: 2017-03-08
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1498538614

The humanities in American higher education is in a state of crisis with declining student enrollment, fewer faculty positions, and diminishing public prestige. Instead of recycling old arguments that have lost their appeal, the humanities must discover and articulate new rationales for their value to students, faculty, administrators, and the public. Why the Humanities Matter Today: In Defense of Liberal Education is an attempt to do so by having philosophers, literature and foreign language professors, historians, and political theorists defend the value and explain the worth of their respective disciplines as well as illuminate the importance of liberal education. By setting forth new arguments about the significance of their disciplines, these scholars show how the humanities can reclaim its place of prominence in American higher education.

Leadership and the Liberal Arts

Leadership and the Liberal Arts
Author: J. Wren
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 238
Release: 2009-03-30
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0230620140

A collection of essays by presidents of prominent liberal arts colleges and leading intellectuals who reflect on the meaning of educating individuals for leadership and how it can be accomplished in ways consistent with the missions of liberal arts institutions.

Idealism and Liberal Education

Idealism and Liberal Education
Author: James O. Freedman
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Total Pages: 198
Release: 2001-01-19
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9780472086702

An eloquent tribute to the value of the liberal education

Rethinking Undergraduate Business Education

Rethinking Undergraduate Business Education
Author: Anne Colby
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 215
Release: 2011-04-20
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1118038711

Business is the largest undergraduate major in the United States and still growing. This reality, along with the immense power of the business sector and its significance for national and global well-being, makes quality education critical not only for the students themselves but also for the public good. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching's national study of undergraduate business education found that most undergraduate programs are too narrow, failing to challenge students to question assumptions, think creatively, or understand the place of business in larger institutional contexts. Rethinking Undergraduate Business Education examines these limitations and describes the efforts of a diverse set of institutions to address them by integrating the best elements of liberal arts learning with business curriculum to help students develop wise, ethically grounded professional judgment.