Owning the Liberal Arts

Could the answer to the supposed decline of the liberal arts education be a more focused curriculum?

A recent article in The New York Times describes a possible advantage among schools who offer a more limited curriculum that focuses, say, on the arts or STEM fields. An analysis of 28,000 undergraduate matriculation decisions showed that schools with a focus in one field—such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology or Rhode Island School of Design—had a matriculation rate that often far surpassed their rankings on traditional metrics. It may seem that schools that have a particular bent to their academic offerings attract a select crowd of loyal students.

The Editorial Board has debated the value and importance of the liberal arts education, which favors a holistic grounding in a combination of the disciplines of humanities and science. In the past, we have defended value of open-ended discussion in a liberal arts education against the advent of massive open online courses, or MOOCs, pushed back against the monetization of a college education and argued for a non-instrumental valuation of a college degree.

While a minority of students who are fortunate to know their calling in life may self-selectively apply for and matriculate to more focused schools, the vast majority of us do not possess the emotional or mental maturity to make that decision as high school seniors. Certain school models which feature academic tracks chosen at an early age have their advantages, particularly those in Europe. In some ways, we see a degree of that specialization at Duke already. Students in the Pratt School of Engineering, for example, can graduate with minimal humanities credits outside of Pratt if they enter Duke with enough Advanced Placement credits.

Yet while concentrating early on a particular field may be appealing to matriculating undergraduates and allow students to achieve more depth over breadth, there are certain things students miss by doing so.

For one, pushing students to take courses outside of their comfort zone creates the opportunity for greater exploration and self discovery. Not having a fully fleshed-out idea of what we really want at the age of 18 means that we need a chance to explore horizontally before we delve vertically, deeper into a more specific field of study. Moreover, as we have argued before, being well-equipped with the critical thinking skills endowed by a liberal arts education is good preparation for whatever we decide to pursue post graduation. To quote the new Duke Dean of the Humanities, Richard Powell, “Someone who sees himself or herself moving into a profession is much better educated if they know art, philosophy, music, literature or drama.”

And even while some schools have benefited from having a more narrowly defined academic purview, students still seem to place a value on a liberal arts education: very few of the top 20 schools on the New York Times analysis changed rankings, even when evaluated by student matriculation.

Yet we caution too much reliance on the course requirements a liberal arts education mandates of its students. Too often, we are tempted to take the path of least resistance and take courses checklist style by assembling four years of courses determined mainly by that which is required of us. Our myriad of academic requirements exist to ensure we have a minimum of working knowledge in a wide range of subjects, but the onus remains on the student to reflect, dig deeper and explore.