Empowering leaders to speak out for liberal education.

SHOULD EDUCATIONAL LEADERS be more outspoken on pressing issues of the day? There has been plenty of discussion in the last few years of the need for college presidents to speak out more often and thoughtfully on public issues. Clearly, there are some leaders who choose not to for good reasons, whether because they feel it is not in the best interests of their institution or because they are not intensely engaged with the issue. When it comes to educational issues, however, these are not compelling excuses. At a time when the Association of American Colleges and Universities is launching a major initiative to expand the goals and implementation of liberal education in the nation's community colleges, baccalaureate colleges, and universities, it is time to ask: What does this require of our educational leaders? Can a leader in any of these institutions afford not to have a thorough understanding of the nature and power of liberal education and willingness to speak out about it?

A program for intellectual renewal

The Educational Leadership Program, whose activities moved this summer to the campus of Yale University, is the only continuous effort in the country to offer college and university leaders and secondary school heads a re-immersion in the liberal arts, as a professional experience tailored to renewing them intellectually. College leaders and secondary school heads have been gathering for nineteen years during the summer in multiple groups of fifteen or so, to think about what human nature is, what knowledge is, whether it is truly attainable, and its connection to action and leadership. They use seminal essays as background readings in weeklong seminars. They ponder Plato's Cave Allegory. Is this allegory about unified truth relevant to today's colleges? How do you know truth when you see it? Was Plato right about its relationship to leadership? How does this apply to my presidency (or my deanship, trusteeship, or headship)? They read Emily Dickinson's sly poem, "Tell All the Truth." They revisit The Prince to see if Machiavelli's advice has any more relevance than they remembered it having from reading it in college. They debate Cardinal Newman's provocative thesis that liberal education can have no ulterior purpose. They look at John Dewey's conception of the purpose of education in a democracy as well as Alfred North Whitehead's notion of a university. They examine the ideas of Hobbes, Locke, Karl Popper, Martha Nussbaum, Virginia Woolf, and many more.

Any mature person who has ever torn her or his mind away from the daily stream of external demands and activities of modern living long enough to ponder a problem deeply knows how difficult it is to find the space and summon the necessary mental concentration to think deeply about anything, let alone the foundations of education. Anyone who has succeeded in doing so knows the quiet joy that comes with its accomplishment. Plato himself described how difficult it is in his allegory. And yet as important as it is for all of us, it is supremely important for educational leaders, charged with finding ways for their institutions to succeed in imparting the virtues of disciplined intelligence to others.

Why a leadership program?

The need for such a leadership retreat program in American education was initially identified in 1983 during a conference I ran to discuss ways that leadership of liberal arts institutions could be strengthened. Confidence in the leadership of all organizations was low at that time, suffering still from the aftermath of Vietnam disillusionment and '60s campus upheavals. Liberal arts institutions seemed especially wounded, not having yet come to terms with the need to think through the changes necessary to make curriculum more relevant, and seemingly inclined to take a back seat to the spirit of specialization triumphing in research universities. The idea of using the very clay of liberal education in a program of intellectual renewal for educational leaders was especially attractive to me. It could reinforce the value of liberal education as a leadership training method and at the same time re-energize leaders in promoting it.

The Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation agreed to underwrite a trial seminar, which was duly planned for the following summer. Adam Yarmolinsky, whose reputation as a moderator for the Aspen seminars for business leaders was significant, was brought on board to help plan the seminar and moderate it.

The first seminar outpaced all expectations. On the first morning, I watched accomplished senior presidents become cautious, even visibly nervous, upon being asked to comment upon a text they had not considered for years. Yet, quickly they became animated and engaged, as they realized they were not in front of faculty but in an unusually relaxing setting, being nurtured by great ideas. By the end of the seminar, warm and lasting friendships had been formed. There was no question in anyone's mind that an important program of retreats could and should be created. As one participant, Charles Glassick, then president of Gettysburg College, later vice president for the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, said years later, "Even though I had just finished five weeks of traveling and was extraordinarily tired, I knew that I was involved in a rare opportunity that could well be a benchmark in my life."

In years following, as the program grew, the moderators developed approaches to the material that were tailored for four different sets of educational leaders. For presidents, leadership and the relationship of civic and moral values to education were always strong themes. For trustees, who took a shorter version, the discussions usually focused on explaining concepts of education and exploring the role of trustees in academic affairs. For deans, the key questions were always curricular, and for school heads, they were both curricular and pedagogical. The consideration of virtues such as heroism, altruism, civility, compassion, and courage and their connection to education have been a strong part in all the seminars. From the very beginning participants found themselves wanting to return for reunions to recreate the experience, and the Educational Leadership Program began planning yearly weekend events that soon established ties to a growing network of leaders.

As the years have gone by, the program has become more involved with discussions of the need to reshape curricula to meet changing demographics and new theories of knowledge. Although its main goal has remained to help leaders articulate liberal education, liberal education itself has been evolving, and the seminars have become an important place to debate the evolution. Unsurprisingly, the summer 2003 groups have discussed questions raised by the Association of American Colleges and Universities' recent national panel report, Greater Expectations: A New Vision for Learning as a Nation Goes to College. Is liberal education a universal principle? Can every student be held accountable to its principles? These questions do not seem so far removed from reality today, in part because in 1987 and again in 1993, the Educational Leadership Program offered special programs to help school heads and college presidents formulate in discussions joint statements on liberal education that had similar themes.

In 1996, 1998, and again in 2000, the Educational Leadership Program hosted discussions in Eastern Europe for leaders interested in liberal education as a broad concept of education for post-communist societies.

Thus was born the Educational Leadership Program, whose programs have helped and continue to help more than 1,000 leaders throughout the United States and abroad renew their understanding of the benefits of liberal education for democracy. "[I]t is still the best professional experience I've ever had," says Arthur Levine, president of Teachers' College at Columbia. And Diana Chapman Walsh, president of Wellesley College, comments, "A deeply enjoyable sojourn in the world of ideas."

New program, new site

For many years the Educational Leadership Program was under the direct sponsorship of the Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation, which, following the success of the first seminar, continued and extended its support unstintingly. Now the Educational Leadership Program is an independent organization with its own governing board. After years of meeting at small resorts, the new board decided to move the seminars for the summer of 2003 to the campus of Yale University. Four seminars were held in July, one each for trustees, presidents, deans, and school heads. All of them took place in Yale's Whitney Humanities Center. As impressive as this setting is, the Educational Leadership Program has worked hard to keep the same character to the seminars as before, with diverse institutional representation and a relaxed social atmosphere. Full advantage is being taken of the intellectual and cultural resources of Yale.

The importance of the liberal arts for society has always been a vital concern at Yale. It has had strong liberal arts programs and service to society as themes in its undergraduate college for years. As it happens, Yale just now is in an active phase of discussing with its faculty the need to re-shape and strengthen its undergraduate curriculum through the creation of more interdisciplinary courses, more small seminars, more advising support, increased emphasis on international education, and the establishment of new teaching centers. Thus, the Educational Leadership Program comes to Yale at a time when Yale itself is engaged in the intensive discussions of just the kind the Educational Leadership Program has always encouraged.

Synergistic opportunities to exchange views with faculty and deans were clearly present. Among those who agreed to meet with seminar participants were the historian John Lewis Gaddis, who, with Paul Kennedy, has developed an interdisciplinary seminar on Grand Strategy using classical texts as well as political theory. Anthony Kronman, a legal philosopher who is dean of the law school and Richard Brodhead, the undergraduate dean of the college, also agreed to participate. A committee chaired by Dean Brodhead has just completed the two-year study of undergraduate education whose recommendations the faculty are now discussing.

Part of the intent of the program has always been to be an enjoyable occasion physically as well as intellectually. The participants are expected to have done their reading beforehand and the seminar is carefully paced. Three-hour discussion sessions take place in the morning. Afternoons are generally left free for reflection and diversions. Dinners are orchestrated events that are often succeeded by a music performance. In the early years of the program, when it was held at a resort close to the Berkshires called "Troutbeck," an evening at the Tanglewood Summer Symphony was always on the schedule.

There has been no change in style of these pleasurable occasions. Dinners were held at two clubs, and a special banquet for each seminar was put on at Yale's Whitney Humanities Center. An evening at the historic Goodspeed Opera House to see a major revival of a musical replaced the Tanglewood event. Participants stayed at the Omni, across the New Haven green from the campus, and, of course, Yale's considerable athletic facilities (swimming, tennis, golf, etc.) as well as other cultural attractions, such as several fine museums, were available to all.

The move to Yale is auspicious. Liberal education is being re-defined, both at Yale and nationally. The Educational Leadership Program has had much success with a curriculum that encourages leaders to think through and reevaluate their view of liberal education. Over the years a number of leaders who have gone through the program later have become prominent spokespersons for liberal education in other, more powerful positions. Jolene Koester, president of California State University at Northridge, states: "The seminar has been extraordinary in its intellectual stimulation and its capacity to consider the moral underpinning of education." More than a dozen deans have gone on to be presidents; quite a few presidents have gone on to be foundation officials and trustees; and several trustees have started their own visionary foundations and educational programs. I have yet to find one of them who does not feel a sense of gratitude for their week spent with peers renewing their vision of what the liberal arts can mean for society.

Now, with the move to Yale, the Educational Leadership Program's time-tested program will be enriched with new resources, and leaders from all accredited secondary schools, public or private, community colleges, or four-year colleges or universities will have a splendid opportunity to reexamine and renew their commitment to liberal education. It has become something that many believe every educational leader should do at some point in his or her career.

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NICHOLAS H. FARNHAM is president of the Educational Leadership Program.