In a liberal arts education, less can be more.
By President Ronald D. Liebowitz
I would like to share with you a concern voiced by students, faculty, and staff in meetings I have hosted this fall in preparation for the strategic planning process that has just begun on campus. The issue has to do with the choices our students make in their academic and cocurricular spheres during their four years at Middlebury. The common concern centers on whether students, in trying to do "too much" while here, are cheating themselves out of the lifelong benefits of a liberal arts education.
A question worth asking in order to assess this concern is whether our students' assumptions about what kind of education will serve them best after Middlebury are flawed, or at best shortsighted. To engage this issue, one must, of course, be clear about the major goal of a liberal arts education, as well as what a liberally educated person looks like when he or she graduates.
A liberal arts education, to those committed to this mode of teaching and learning, is to educate students both broadly and deeply. Educating "broadly" means that students are challenged to engage areas of knowledge previously unknown to them, which opens up new worlds of thinking and imagining, fosters creativity, and allows for connections among what otherwise might appear to be disparate aspects of our human and physical worlds. It means ensuring that students don't simply gravitate to the "tried and true" areas of the curriculum during registration—selecting courses they studied in high school and in which they did well. It means, over a four-year period, opening one's mind by exploring the remarkably rich array of subject matter offered at a place like Middlebury. It means making connections among what were previously unknown areas of inquiry to help one better understand oneself, humanity, and the unknown, and to ignite further one's sense of exploration and yearning to know more.
Educating "deeply" means that students are challenged to immerse themselves in a particular body of knowledge to a level of mastery that allows them to ask important questions about that body of knowledge. It also requires them to gather the information they need to answer those questions, analyze and synthesize the information, articulate the answers clearly both orally and through writing, and understand how the meaning of their findings relates to aspects of their discipline and across other frontiers of knowledge. This depth of study allows one, in the short term, to be an "expert" in a specific area, but that expertise, given how knowledge advances so rapidly these days, is fleeting. More important than mastering a body of knowledge and becoming a temporary expert in the field are the skills students develop in pursuing that subject matter, and then taking those skills and habits of the mind with them, beyond Middlebury.
A liberal arts education should produce liberally educated individuals—individuals who, through the process of engaging new subjects and knowledge and studying a particular body of knowledge in great depth, have developed a clear set of values, learned to synthesize and integrate knowledge, learned about multiple modes of inquiry, and have developed an informed appreciation for the local and the global. They have learned how to think critically, how to pursue answers to complex problems, how to write and speak clearly, and how to view issues from multiple perspectives.
What do these attributes of a liberal arts education mean for Middlebury's academic and cocurricular programs, and how are they related to the concerns raised in our open meetings about "student choices"? With regard to the academic program, it should mean we need to question our students' increasing tendency to choose to pursue double or triple majors, something approximately 25 percent of our students now do. On the surface, pursing multiple majors suggests great academic ambition, something we should applaud. But completing more than one major concentrates a student's studies in two departments (or three for triple majors), thereby eroding a primary goal of a liberal arts education—educating individuals broadly. If students must complete at least 10–14 courses in two or three disciplines to attain their majors, then at least 20–30 of their 34 courses taken at Middlebury are accounted for in a narrow slice of the curriculum. The result is that students are less likely and able to take a critical mass of courses beyond their majors, across the College's 27 academic departments.
Rather than graduating students who have been exposed to a large number of new areas of knowledge, which would enable them to enter their post-college world with the capacity to understand and acquire new perspectives and modes of thinking, this trend toward multiple majors would result in an increasing number of students who were narrowly educated. Students may think this specialization of study will benefit them in the short term as they look to immediately apply their newly acquired knowledge in their chosen careers, but, in fact, it will do the opposite. Globalization in the 21st century means our graduates will face a faster changing world than past generations faced. It will be a world that requires an adaptability and flexibility in thought and perspective like never before, and it will force people in all walks of life to come continually into direct contact with others who hold different perspectives and thought processes. A more broadly educated individual will no doubt be more effective in such an environment than one who is more narrowly educated.
The value of combining breadth and depth in one's college education applies just as powerfully to student choices about cocurricular activities. The concerns raised at the open meetings and lunches question how students are choosing their cocurricular opportunities, and to what end. Faculty see students over-engaged in cocurricular activities to the detriment of their studies; staff, especially in student services, note a high level of stress among students because they cannot meet all their obligations; and students have requested that the College consider limiting the days during which faculty could give exams so they could sustain all their activities outside the classroom and feel less stress from the academic program.
But the fundamental issue here is not about resolving the natural tension between academic and cocurricular pursuits which each student should be responsible for learning to address him or herself. The key issue is one of balancing quantity versus quality of participation. In other words, it is not that our students are "too involved" in student organizations, athletic teams, or volunteer activities. It is the kind of involvement that I believe is at the heart of the concerns voiced by students, faculty, and staff.
Meaningful participation in student organizations and all cocurricular activities requires substantial time; yet, when students get involved in too many activities, it is impossible to dedicate significant and meaningful time to any one entity. Recruiters to campus, and many chief executive officers of businesses and directors of large nonprofit organizations with whom I have discussed this issue, are consistent in stating what is most important to them when considering whom to hire. They explain that students who show a great commitment to an organization, be it to athletics, the orchestra, theatrical groups, volunteer services, or environmental projects in the community, are far more attractive as potential employees than students who have had limited participation in a large number of activities. They note the necessity of finding students who have learned to work collaboratively. Not surprisingly, they are less interested in students who have dabbled in many activities than in those who have learned the tough lessons of team work.
I am not suggesting that students should limit their participation on campus to one organization or activity. I am, however, suggesting that students would be well advised to discriminate among the many opportunities they have on campus in order to develop the most valuable skills and make the most of their opportunity to be as well educated as possible.
I believe strongly that the College must play an active role in providing students with practical guidance so they may benefit most from their Middlebury education. They need to hear more about the goals of a liberal arts education and why depth and breadth of study in the academic program are important to the development of the skill sets necessary for meaningful engagement in our world. They need to know why learning the lessons of collaboration and team work through cocurricular activities will enable them to graduate as well-rounded individuals.
If there is a culture of "more is better" when it comes to how many majors one completes or how many cocurricular activities one participates in, then we need to question that culture and the values that support it. As a liberal arts college committed to the development of the full individual, we owe it to our students to engage them on the implications of their choices.
I look forward to engaging this issue as part of the College's strategic planning process. Please send your thoughts on this issue to me at:
officeofthepresident@middlebury.edu.