Co-opting the marketplace in service of liberal arts education. (My View).

FROM THE OUTSET, we need to acknowledge the stark reality today: the prevalence--one might say the hegemony--of the marketplace imperative in American society. While we may appreciate the value of a liberal arts education, contemporary students do not necessarily share that sentiment. Times have changed: In 1900, 70 percent of college students in the U.S. attended liberal arts colleges. Today, fewer than 5 percent do.

In 1997, a Yankelovitch survey focused on college-bound high school students and their parents. It found that 85 percent of high school students and 74 percent of their parents stated that the goal of college is to get a practical education and to secure a job. Furthermore, only 14 percent of the students and 27 percent of their parents were even familiar with what a liberal arts education is.

We at Pace University are cognizant of this reality. An appreciation of the intrinsic value of the liberal arts is central to our institutional mission. We are committed to providing all of our 9,000 undergraduate students with a strong core curriculum that is anchored in our college of arts and sciences. Accordingly, 67 percent of our undergraduate courses are in the arts and sciences. Yet, we find that 62 percent of our students have elected to declare majors in our professional schools of business, computer science and information systems, education, and nursing.

Simply put, today's students tend to be career-oriented, impatient, and focused on material rewards. They place a premium on the acquisition of specific skills (e.g., HTML, accounting) that will credential them for a particular job or occupation, preferably one where there's a shortage of skilled workers and hence, where wages are high. It is in response to this mentality and demand that intensive on-line courses are flourishing.

The challenge we face is to assure that our students have a real liberal arts experience and become truly "educated," even when they are focused on careers. We need to find new ways of making liberal arts education attractive and "relevant" to career-oriented students, while remaining faithful to the goals and high ideals of the liberal arts.

Transformative education

Let me begin by explaining what I mean by "liberal arts education." While that label is well worn, the intention of liberal education is difficult to define. In the tradition of the medieval idea of the seven artes liberales that constitute the ideal curriculum, we are tempted these days to define the liberal arts as a list of specific courses and distribution requirements. More recently, faculty committees have crafted statements of desired "learning outcomes"--certain knowledge and skills--that a liberal education is expected to provide. Such lists and statements, however, do not capture the essential goal of a liberal arts education. Ultimately, a liberal education is intended to be transformative and liberating. Through a variety of experiences that stretch from first year through senior year and occur both inside and outside the classroom, a qualitative change takes place. Liberal education provides the typical eighteen- to twenty-one-year-old student with a bridge to adulthood and liberates them from th e shackles of narrow perspectives and prejudices arising from both overspecialization and a failure to put knowledge in dialogue with values. Prom another perspective, one could say that the whole of these experiences is greater than the sum of the parts.

Co-opting the marketplace

How do we assure that our students have a qualitative, transformative experience, especially when that is not what they are looking for? Here's my solution, a modest proposal: Let's co-opt the marketplace mentality of our students in service of the liberal arts. Let's find new ways of making the liberal arts attractive and relevant to our students.

The device that I propose is the old "Bait and Switch." Salespeople and parents use this trick all the time. Parents entice and tempt their children with one thing that appeals to them, then switch and give them something better and more rewarding. Recognizing that our students listen to the Siren call of the market, we can play to their sense of the market imperative but design the experience so that it transforms the students in ways that they cannot anticipate, ways that accomplish the goals of a liberal arts education. Here are some examples of "bait and switch:"

Encourage students to study abroad. Tell them that such an experience will prepare them to be actors in the global economy (and it will). Tell them that it will enhance their resume (and it will). Thus, their motivation to study abroad will be market-oriented, but the experience itself will help us create a liberally educated person. Moving students outside their culture can be a powerful liberal arts experience. When thrust into another society and immersed in another culture (especially a non-English-speaking culture), students will be challenged to see things differently and to encounter ideas, experiences, realities, and perspectives that are outside their normal worldview. Such education "liberates" students from the customary, unexamined ways of doing, seeing, and thinking, and it raises them to new levels of critical awareness and appreciation.

Promote internships. Liberal education should not be confined to the classroom. There is a dialectical relationship between theory and practice. Students often learn best by "doing"--by being challenged to test, apply, and put into practice the theories that they have learned in the classrooms and from books. We can send students out on internships. Have the English major intern at The New Yorker, send the economics major to Quick and Reilly, and make it possible for the art history major to assist the curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art--or to your local or regional equivalents. They'll all be eager to go. Their market mentality will tell them that they will build their resumes, make contacts, network with important people, and perhaps even land a job offer. They are right, of course, but that's only part of what will happen. If we have our students articulate their goals and think critically and reflectively about their internship experiences, then they will connect the classroom lessons with the larger world. Furthermore, they will develop those all-important skills that are fundamental to a liberal arts education: speaking, writing, and thinking clearly and critically.

Encourage science majors to participate in research. Science majors understand that research experience will prepare them for jobs or graduate school. Motivated by such utilitarian goals, they will jump at the chance to participate in a research project with a faculty mentor. They will develop problem-solving skills and experience collaborative learning and teamwork. Gradually, they will be brought to the point of taking charge of their own learning. Ultimately, they will cross that threshold where they are no longer simply memorizing facts, but rather, learning to create new knowledge, one of the marks of a liberally educated person.

Appeal to students' pragmatic tendencies through the titles assigned to core courses. A liberal arts education should introduce students to philosophy, ethics, and questions of value. Yet they might not be attracted to courses entitled "The Virtue Ethics of Aristotle," "Kant's Deontological Reasoning," or "The Utilitarianism of Bentharn and J.S. Mill." Instead, consider introducing them to such philosophers and their methods of normative inquiry through courses entitled "Contemporary Moral Issues" or "The Ethics of Health Care." Likewise, students would probably be more likely to select a Spanish language course entitled "Commercial Spanish" over one entitled "Spanish Culture." If the instructor of "Commercial Spanish" were true to liberal arts principles, he/she would begin from the premise that to be successful in the arena of international business, one must not only speak the language of commerce, but must also have an understanding and profound appreciation of the culture (literature, arts, customs, hist ory) as well as practices (economic and political) of Spanish-speaking nations. A course in "Commercial Spanish," then, would present the language and practice of commerce within the context of a broader liberal arts perspective. As these two examples illustrate, "packaging" (i.e. titles) is important to our market-oriented students, and we can be market savvy.

Use information technology to advantage. Our students are obsessed with the need to be technologically adept at such computer skills as Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, Adobe photoshop techniques, web/internet page design, etc. I advise against offering standalone computer skills courses and special certificate programs such as one finds in continuing education programs or proprietary institutions. Instead, our strategy is to embed such skills in traditional general education courses. Here are some examples from Pace University: One professor of English now instructs all of her students to develop their own Web pages. Some are motivated to take her courses precisely because of the skills they will develop, but all will also learn a great deal about literature and writing. Students take a sociology course because they will learn how to make a PowerPoint presentation. They do, of course, but they also engage in study and research that focuses on race and ethnic relations in U.S. society, the assign ed subject and topic of their PowerPoint presentation. Simply put, IT is not a separate category, but a tool that can be embedded in standard liberal arts courses. Students will seek out those courses--and they will be richer because of that experience.

Attract, engage, and excite students through active, student-centered pedagogy. It is said that "the medium is the message." With regard to the liberal arts, we should recognize that the content of a course is not the only consideration. If we truly want our students to learn a subject matter, we need to think carefully about how we present the material. Modern learning theory is teaching us that for many students the traditional teacher-centered pedagogy is not effective. Instead, student-centered pedagogy that actively engages students in the subject matter can have a powerful effect on learning.

We at Pace have recently joined with colleagues from Smith, Trinity, and Barnard Colleges to adopt and refine a curriculum pioneered at Barnard entitled "Reacting to the Past." What is distinctive about this interdisciplinary focus on civilization is the pedagogy. The professor's podium disappears and students take center stage. Acting and reacting to critical times, they take on roles, immerse themselves in primary texts and fundamental debates, and write and deliver speeches; they make history come alive. In so doing, they grasp the complexity of important historical contexts such as "Democracy at the Threshold: Athens in 403 BC," "The Trial of Anne Hutchinson: Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1637," and "Gandhi and the Fate of the Indian Subcontinent in 1945." We would all be well advised to scrutinize how we "deliver" the liberal arts in our classrooms. Great debates, seminal texts, and fundamental lessons can be brought to life with effective pedagogy. And when students become excited about a course because i t's alive and relevant, they will "market it" through the campus grapevine, and the liberal arts--regardless of the subject matter--will flourish.

Put volunteerism in service of the liberal arts. Studies tell us that volunteerism is popular these days among college students. Normally students find an outlet for their desire to "help others" through the nonacademic divisions on our campuses such as student services, campus ministry, etc. Yet liberal education expects more of students than mere altruism. A distinct ideal of liberal arts education is to develop individuals and citizen leaders who are morally and socially responsible and who, through their words and actions, advance the cause of social justice. To correct societal wrongs and to improve the lives of others--locally and around the world--values of volunteerism must be combined with knowledge. For example, when the curriculum helps young adults to examine and study complex urban problems of poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, crime, drugs, discrimination, and political exclusion, then they will have a knowledge base that will enable them to move from working three hours in a soup kitchen (volun teerism) to civic engagement directed at changing the fundamental structural problems afflicting the poor.

Our challenge as educators is to link classroom study of real world problems with community involvement that reaches beyond volunteerism to civic engagement. Such is the mission of Pace University. Our New York City campus is located in lower Manhattan. Since the tragic events of September 11, our dedication to the city--its neighborhoods, businesses, cultural and civic organizations, schools, and people--is stronger than ever. On December 3, President David Caputo announced the establishment of the Center for Downtown New York at Pace University. We are committed to sharing our resources and expertise with our neighbors while furthering civic competency in the city during this critical time of recovery. Thanks to several dedicated Pace University faculty who practice the "scholarship of engagement," each week students in Women s Studies courses work with women in need in New York City; speech students reach out to elementary schools to teach children about the work of UNICEF; sociology students study juvenil e delinquency by tutoring adolescent male offenders at a residential facility; environmental studies students lobby to clean the Hudson River; and students of psychology tutor and play with children at settlement houses in New York. While working to solve societal problems and to help a disadvantaged population, such service learning simultaneously transforms college students, creating knowledgeable future citizen leaders who are compassionate, respectful of difference, morally and socially responsible, and committed to justice.

Summing up

As seasoned educators who understand the benefits of the liberal arts, we are challenged to know our audience, find creative ways of capturing its attention, and present it with a transformative education, even if that seems not what students think they want. We don't give up on them. Instead, we think outside the box and find ways to co-opt pragmatic goals in service of the liberating ideals of liberal arts education.

BEVERLY L. KAHN is associate provost at Pace University. Adapted from a talk at a Faculty Resource Network conference.