Is HC Adapting Enough to the Changing Marketplace?

There's room for both business and liberal arts in a 3000 student college.

Walter Russell Mead weighs in in the American Interest --

EDUCATION TRANSFORMATION
The Vanishing Liberal Arts Degree
WALTER RUSSELL MEAD

In an article in the Wall Street Journal outlining how liberal arts colleges, in the face of skyrocketing tuitions, are retooling themselves to offer more pragmatic degrees, a statistic stands out:




The reality is that only about one to two percent of Americans got a true liberal arts education in 1900; given how bogus many “liberal arts” degrees actually are, it’s likely that we are back to the same percentage, or, depending on whether you think a basic reading knowledge of Latin is part of a liberal arts education, even lower.

What is killing liberal education in America? First and foremost, it’s a culture that has never really appreciated liberal education. In part that’s a good thing; sending your kids to fancy schools where they learn to write verses in dead languages is a form of conspicuous consumption. America, never having had the kind of elite culture that centuries of aristocratic domination can impress on a nation, has always looked more to pragmatic subjects. American liberal culture probably reached its peak in the first half of the twentieth century when the plutocrats of the Industrial Age were sending their kids to the St. Grottlesex schools, where curricula were modeled on 19th century British standards. Dean Acheson could still sneer at another prep school grad in the 1950s because, when he read his Latin authors, he used a “trot”—a literal English translation that allowed lazy schoolboys to prepare their homework without actually learning all that Latin.

In reality, learning the ancient languages is actually a very good way to train young minds: they learn how complex edifices rise from small foundations and, as they read classical authors like Caesar, Cicero, Virgil and Livy they take in a substantial share of the cultural background that enables them both to interact with similarly educated people around the Atlantic (and South American) world—and that equips them to deal with civilizations and cultures very different from their own.

Beyond that, the general knowledge of history, literature and the arts that the tiny fraction of American students lucky enough to enroll in colleges that really teach them—and smart enough to identify what is usually a handful of professors who teach them well—is an extraordinary method of training people who will be called on to fill responsible posts in their country and communities.

But few employers or parents really understand this, and in any case these days, too many colleges have given up on liberal education—too many dead white males involved in creating the liberal tradition, too much God and not nearly enough fondness for abortion, far too much patriotism and some deeply offensive reflections on the need for the classical virtues to prevent a democratic society from following the natural path of degeneracy into mob rule and, in the end, despotism. Since most of the people who wrote the classic texts that the liberal humanities have traditionally taught hold views that would prevent them from speaking on the enlightened campuses of our noble times, it is only natural that a growing number of campuses convert their humanities curricula into workshops for social justice warriors.

Given this mess, students naturally respond by turning away from disciplines that, to many, seem to have no economic value and no serious intellectual content beyond the commonplace cliches of chic hackademic discourse.

From this perspective, the decision to turn toward “practical subjects” makes a lot of sense. If you aren’t going to get a real education no matter what you do in college, you might as well learn something that will get you paid later.

Okay, you are saying that by abandoning the mission that has been at the core of the college for generations, HC will receive more support from the alumni who were educated for that mission? That seems to defy logic, don't you think? Do you really think there are hundreds of wealthy alums who are opposed to educating men and women for others?

I'm all for "educating men and women for others" if the education is balanced and exposes students to varying viewpoints which some may not agree with. I don't think that's largely the case at HC anymore. HC should look to the University of Chicago for guidance but that would take strong leadership to stand up the intolerant crowd.

In the early 60's there was virtually no diversity. All male, all Catholic, almost all white, almost all middle class. I would guess most of us were from Catholic all boys high schools. The Vietnam phenomenon had not yet happened. Our big event was the Cuban missile crisis. I recall all of us watching JFK's live speech from the WH on the TV in our dorm's lobby (one of the only TVs in the bldg). We were all psyched to march down Southbridge St to the recruiting office. No automobiles, no girls, no phones and no carpeting (!). Mandatory daily Mass and no studying after lights out. Thems were the days!

(not sarcasm) When was the last time a prominent Atheist was invited to McFarland to give a major address and participate in accompanying panels, etc? For example, if the late lamented Christopher Hitchens had been invited to McFarland it would have had a salutary impact on my perception of HC today. Daniel Dennett, a world class figure, is just down the road at Tufts.

When did St Benedict's have a pacifist / atheist as their commencement speaker?

It is the function of Holy Cross to promote the Catholic Church, not to promote the study of atheism.

St Benedict'S Seminary?

Has he spoken at Benedicts lately?

'sota-- you are just too funny. Thanks for adding your unique brand of humor to this board