The Value of Liberal Arts
by Ed Kanis
Governor Patton's recent unveiling of the "Education Pays"
campaign message on state highways certainly drives home the value
of a solid education.
Clearly, students have several roads to take in charting their
own career course. In reflecting on those options, I'm reminded of
the results of an in-depth qualitative study completed by a local
research firm several years ago which detailed the expectations
business and industry leaders from throughout the region have of
graduates of institutions of higher learning. While the study was
commissioned by the Kentucky Council on Higher Education and
focused on public colleges and universities, the insights it offers
are useful for all institutions throughout the Commonwealth. They
also lend added credence to educators who argue a broad liberal
arts education is essential to students' success and their ability
to contribute to those companies who employ them.
Perhaps one of the most telling of the report's findings was the
weight placed by participants, who represented a broad cross
section of business leaders from various industries across the
region, on skills beyond mastery of one's particular discipline.
Among the critical abilities identified by participants were
communication skills--listening, writing, and speaking--which are
considered essential for problem solving and decision making. The
participants also expected graduates to work collegially with
others from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds and to react
and respond to changing work environments and organizational
priorities.
It is in the area of adaptability and responsiveness that the
liberal arts-prepared graduate shines brightest. Today's college
graduates face a work scenario that in all probability will entail
multiple job (and even career) changes as technology makes
traditional ways of doing things obsolete. The liberal arts learner
is well equipped to survive--even thrive--in this environment
because an understanding that learning is a lifelong process is at
the core of a liberal arts education. Rather than train for a
specific job-one that may or may not exist in the years
ahead-students educated in the liberal arts tradition are prepared
to adapt to new environments, to think analytically and
conceptually, to integrate broad ranges of experiences, and to
assume leadership roles.
Aside from valuing learning as a lifelong endeavor, liberal
arts-educated students have learned how to learn. This faculty will
serve them well as the very nature of work and the workplace
continue to be transformed by proliferating information and
information technology. Since all students now need to be fully
proficient with technology, and since information with rapidly
emerging multimedia capacity is presenting so many new and
imaginative opportunities for teaching and learning, the college
that emphasizes liberal arts through the most advanced
instructional technology will provide a solid educational
foundation for career success and personal growth in the next
millennium.
The executive suites of many corporations and organizations are
inhabited by people who understood early the value classic
education in the liberal arts would add to their careers. Lawrence
Foster, Johnson & Johnson's former vice president and corporate
officer responsible for public relations during the Tylenol scare,
called a sold liberal arts education the best possible preparation
for students aspiring to communications careers. Foster made this
point in an interview with Communication World just before
his retirement, adding that learning to write effectively was
essential. Perhaps he was recalling his reading and the words of
Isocrates that remind us good writing is the surest sign of good
thinking.
The liberal arts have been, and will continue to be, the most
effective preparation for the leaders of tomorrow. It is primarily
through the liberal arts that a human being is educated to think
clearly, communicate effectively, work collaboratively, and develop
the framework that allows him or her to succeed in the maelstrom of
change that is contemporary life.
This piece was prepared for Dr. Joseph McGowan, president of
Bellarmine University (Louisville, KY), and ran in various Kentucky
daily newspapers, August 1998.
The author has served as an instructor, administrator and
consultant for higher education institutions in Kentucky, Indiana,
Virginia and New Jersey.