an inquiry into how to respond to the crisis in liberal education

What is it about?

This article offers four responses to the crisis in liberal education, the reactionary, the conservative, the pragmatist, and the presentist. The reactionary approach seeks to return to a great books program; the conservative indicates that liberal education should provide an interval for asking perennial questions, but understands that those questions emerge in an ever-changing environment; the pragmatist is more responsive to student interests and social concerns, including the need for job training, but it sees liberal education not as merely instrumental, but as a way to imaginatively reconstruct the social environment; the presentist response is overly conformist to the current demands for STEM education and is too willing to give up on the practice of asking perennial questions in favor of following the demands of grant funders or employers.

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Why is it important?

The crisis in liberal education is real, and if we want to save it, we need a thoughtful way to be more than general education functionaries of universities pushing only STEM education.

Perspectives