Community and technical colleges specialize in workforce training, and in transfer courses that lead to completed majors in various fields of employment. But many courses fall into sundry components of the humanities, fine arts, social sciences, and liberal arts. The last of these categories is increasingly difficult to define, and often overlaps with the others, particularly as departments find themselves situated within the organization of a college or university.
The liberal arts have been receiving a lot of attention lately, and the news isn't good. For purposes of discussion, let's just say that these courses consist mostly of those that do not lead (at least directly) to a job. If you believe there is value in analyzing the works of Homer, Plato, Milton, Chaucer and such—for their own sake—you are presumably advocating a liberal arts education. Obviously there is abundant relativity here, not to mention the obligatory debate over the canon of authors to be studied. Many have noted for instance, that the traditional list of worthy authors consists of dead white European men. Critics ask, "This is liberal education?"
In addition to these challenges facing the liberal arts is the current recession. Based on published enrollment figures, private liberal arts colleges are declining steeply. Some are threatened with extinction. Students and parents are choosing state-supported schools, in the hope that young people will gain employment in a tough market. Public schools, needless to say, are also less expensive. Some proprietary institutions are doing well, but they don't specialize in the liberal arts.
This trend can actually be helpful to community colleges, of course, in terms of their perceived value to society in the future. But one wonders what will happen to the Core Curriculum, which contains a liberal arts component. The Texas Legislature has already decided that certain "priority" fields such as science, computer technology, nursing, mathematics, and engineering deserve extra financial support. These "priority" fields do not include English, history, psychology, government, philosophy, etc.
The Washington Post recently published an article (registration) on the struggles of liberal arts colleges. It is worth a look, even though it may be a stretch for community college educators to relate to schools that cost $40,000 a year in tuition. However, colleges that emphasize "Great Books" in their curriculum tend to perform very well in post-graduation employment and in admission to graduate programs in law, medicine, and business. We have all noticed how many students end up employed in fields that have no apparent relationship to their major back in college. In fact it happens all the time.
TCCTA lobbyist Beaman Floyd majored in Russian studies, for instance. (On the other hand, there may be a smooth continuum between a lobbyist's daily vocation and tsars, commissars, mystical chanting, mad monks, vodka, central planning, and exile to Siberia. But never mind.)
In the spirit of rooting for the underdog, here are couple of brief passages from the Post article by Daniel de Vise:
"Liberal arts colleges have had to defend the marketability of a philosophy major for as long as competing public and private institutions have offered degrees in engineering and business, often at a lower cost. But never, perhaps, have families weighed the value of a liberal education more carefully than in the 2009-10 admissions cycle, which found the nation mired in its worst recession since the 1930s.
"People all think that in a bad economy, they need skills for a job," said Christopher Nelson, president of St. John's. "What they don't realize is that a liberal arts education will give them skills for life, and that will get them a job."
And:
"Much like students at a traditional liberal arts school, St. John's freshmen generally assume that they will learn their eventual trade in graduate school: Twenty percent of St. John's graduates end up in business, 10 percent in law, 7 percent in medicine. Majors, they say, are overrated.
"If you go to school and you learn to do one thing and then you change careers down the line, you know nothing that will help you," said Tim McClennen, 19, a freshman from Cutler Ridge, Fla."
re paragraph 6: good one, Scott! : )
Posted by: Carol Lowe | August 29, 2009 at 11:09 AM