Valuing the Liberal Arts Tradition, Part III

Valuing the Liberal Arts Tradition, Part III
By Dalila Huerta

The school year is rapidly coming to an end, and with the close of the 2008-2009 school year, Marian College will also meet its end--our school will return next year as Marian University.

As the end of the year approaches, I reflect on a statement made by the American poet and literary translator John Ciardi: “A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in the students.”

This year also marks the end of my own tenure here at Marian, but I leave confidently knowing that Ciardi’s statement will not apply to Marian’s shift from college to university; if there’s one thing I learned at Marian over the last four years, it is that Marian has a tendency of hiring some of the most deeply caring and intellectually inspiring professors around. I am convinced that the change from college to university will not affect this disposition, or, at the very least, it will not change the disposition of its current faculty.

In fact, throughout this series on the Liberal Arts, I have given a basic definition of the Liberal Arts tradition as well as a description of the goals of a Liberal Arts institution as stated by Professor William Cronon and reinforced through Marian’s Franciscan values. However, I have also emphasized the professors’ key role in preserving the Liberal Arts, and the importance of valuing and protecting their profession in order to maintain the tradition alive. As bleak as the future may seem for Liberal Arts as a whole throughout the nation, we can at least remain assured that this lack of interest in Liberal Arts is not coming from our professors, especially not here at Marian. Unless this interest is eventually lost, Liberal Arts still have a chance.

Fortunately, I think Marian holds a special appeal to Liberal Art focused professors. One of these appeals, as mentioned in the previous installment, is Marian’s Franciscan values. While rooted in Catholic tradition, these values are universal: they can apply and be adopted by any individual hoping to make a change in the world, or hoping to inspire change. This hope, I believe, is an inherent desire of the professor, who, by nature, is perhaps one of the most active participants in making an impact on a person’s life. The Franciscan values provide a goal for intellectual pursuit and prevent the development of the intellect from becoming a self-aggrandizing, self-worshiping cause, and I think (and sincerely hope) that this would remain a hope for any noble professor, especially those choosing to profess at a Liberal Arts institution.

The second appeal, I identify as the students. I believe (and as a future professor perhaps too naively dream) that the professor’s hope for his or her teaching experience involves a desire to participate in spirited intellectual discussions among well-informed, engrossed students. Marian’s small class size may attract professors who wish to realize this dream, since it promises to provide a unique environment for profound intellectual discussion, potentially difficult to promote in larger classes.

Yet I fear this appeal may also be an obstacle. This vision of intellectual discussion between professor and student requires not only the active interest of the professor, but also that of the student. In a large class setting, the students lacking interest may not affect the overall atmosphere of the class discussion, but a student lacking interest in a class of only ten students will greatly affect the discussion’s outcome.

This inevitably brings back memories of my own college experience. Of course, I admit that on several occasions I, too, have skipped a class reading or two due to course overload or other familial obligations; I at least hope that my interest in class discussion was nevertheless apparent. Yet I do recall several discussions in class, which although passionately encouraged by the professor, resulted in complete silence or apathetic student gestures.

I cannot imagine that this reality would be very encouraging or appealing for professors. Although Marian has attracted strong Liberal Arts professors in its past, I cannot see this tradition continuing if students do not demonstrate a desire to protect the Liberal Arts tradition. While it is true that the fate of the Liberal Arts rests on active professors and a supportive administration, the students, too, play a pivotal role in its survival.

This reflection brings me to yet another quote by Albert Einstein: “It is not so very important for a person to learn facts. For that he does not really need a college. He can learn them from books. The value of an education in a liberal arts college is not learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think something that cannot be learned from textbooks.”

This statement by Einstein, the Nobel Prize winning man of science, reinforces the value of a Liberal Arts education, even for non-Liberal Arts majors. Fortunately, Marian has a faculty who embraces Einstein’s vision, and I feel rather confident that the vast majority of our required core curriculum also pursues this goal. Through these courses, and in every course at Marian, Professors embrace the opportunity to help their students apply their course material to larger issues not found in their textbooks, specifically the four Franciscan values.

However, how willing are students to actually apply them? Professors in the Liberal Arts tradition can do their best with necessary support from the administration, but ultimately, the practice of the tradition requires the application of the lessons by the students. In this case, the fate of the Liberal Arts Tradition may ultimately rest in the hands of students as well.

As I leave Marian College, I can only hope that the next year will invite students to appreciate this school’s heritage, history, and legacy as a strong Liberal Arts institution. While other schools are drawing back from this tradition, Marian now has the opportunity to rise as an even stronger Liberal Arts institution, if, and only if, the professors are allowed and encouraged to develop their devotion to the Liberal Arts; if, and only if, the administration renews its commitment to defend and promote Marian’s Liberal Arts tradition and its professors; and finally, if, and only if, the students embrace their own responsibility to live out their Liberal Arts education in the classroom and in their futures. The legacy of Marian University and the Liberal Arts lies in the hands of the students, and I sincerely hope that my alma mater will always make me proud.