Core Values for the College of Liberal Arts and Science
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I
The liberal arts' basic and historic purpose is at once to teach
us to think for ourselves, to act wisely and well in the world, to
undertake occupations useful to ourselves and others. Liberal arts
education seeks ultimately to open us to the human condition in its
pains and joys, thereby to nurture our personal integrity, and to
foster in us compassion and respect for those whose lives we share
in our own communities and around the world.
Liberal arts education rests on a paradox: thinking soundly
oneself means first listening carefully to the thoughts of others.
The liberal arts urge us to cultivate ourselves through the
consciousness of others; careful attention to their ideas and
actions help us refine our own.
Liberal arts education is pluralistic. It is composed of many
voices, each appropriate to time and place, some discordant, none
absolute. It seeks to develop in us wit to judge which skills are
appropriate at which times. Liberal arts education is restless. It
takes nothing for granted. Its characteristic activity is not
uncritical assent but critical judgment. It scrutinizes sacred
truths of every sort.
The liberal arts develop not only critical but also creative
skills, not only rational analysis but also creative expression.
They seek to develop and realize the fullness of the human
personality. Their exercise aims as well at preparing students to
educate themselves long after they have left formal school. Liberal
arts education is meant to train its students for public
responsibility, not just private good.
A liberal arts education is as much about the journey as the
destination. It takes as much delight in the minute by minute
quirks of learning as in the fulfillment of distant goals. It
balances the will to know with empathy and wonderment.
II
The Latin word ars means at once skill, knowledge, and
practice. A liberal arts education begins with the skills of
language and thought.
It teaches us to read well; to listen well; to write clear,
concise prose; to speak privately in conversation, publicly in
discussion, and formally in speeches; to judge one's audience and
regard one's own words through the eyes and ears of others; to
learn proper ways of integrating and citing the words and thoughts
of others into one's own work; to do these things reasonably well
in languages and worldviews other than our own.
It teaches us to set out a case or hypothesis or argument; to
evaluate the rigor of others' arguments; to find and judge
information in libraries, on the internet, and in other
repositories. It teaches us modes of ascertaining truth and
falsehood; resourcefulness appropriate to moral and aesthetic
judgment; methods of logical, experimental, scientific,
mathematical, and statistical reasoning.
These skills allow us to tackle and solve increasingly difficult
and challenging problems, appreciate sources of bias and means of
overcoming them, and entertain arguments from dissonant points of
view. They develop in us a sense of subtlety, depth, and
complexity.
III
A liberal arts education sees the cultivation of these skills
not only as an end in itself but also as a preparation for the
pursuit of knowledge and the other purposes of human life. The
Chinese Book of Changes well captures a fundamental
quality of liberal arts education when it intimates that knowledge
and practice cannot be mastered until they have been regarded from
different perspectives.
As students of the liberal arts, we cultivate as fully as
possible the legacy of human thought, imagination, creativity, and
research; observe nature; confront and evaluate important theories
that shape our understanding of the world and how to care for it;
figure out how societies, our own and those of others, work and can
be improved; weigh the costs and benefits of modern human life to
the individual and the planet; seek to grasp and reduce the sources
of human hatred and conflict; aim to understand and strengthen what
inspires human cooperation; explore the workings of the human mind
and body; unknot claims of teachers, politicians, advertisers,
scientists, preachers, columnists and your roommate; ponder history
from the earliest epochs to the unfolding present; investigate the
mechanisms of the cosmos, from the atom to the stars; delve into
the past experiences of our own and other societies, as well as the
current news; make ourselves at home in other cultures; make those
from other cultures at home among ourselves; see the interplay
between our beliefs about the natural world and our beliefs about
religion, politics, and culture; search out purpose, ponder the
meaning of life, scrutinize the human heart, weigh conscience;
discover the sweep of living systems, from microbes to biomes;
learn to account for ourselves in a moral world that is neither
black nor white; engage in a careful search for truth; know the
ways of money and the nature of work; wrestle with ideas about God;
fathom the relations between technology and human life; raise
children, our own and those of others; consider the well-being of
future generations; appreciate the beauty and uses of mathematics;
forge agreements with loved ones, friends and enemies; engage
ourselves in the principles, purposes and practice of public
life.
As students of the liberal arts, we do these things as part of a
community with venerable roots; a community still evolving in space
and time; a community of thought, imagination, value, labor, and
action.
Adopted by the LAS Faculty, 21 March 2007