The other day I was doing one of the things I love best about my job—singing the song of the liberal arts to a group of committed faculty about to embark on the challenging but rewarding process of general education assessment. Those of you in my vast readership who have been through the current process should feel free to comment and correct this notion, but the assessment folks and I have heard again and again that the creation of the course portfolio and the subsequent review and feedback have been, in the final analysis, a source of insight and not too onerous either for submitters or reviewers. So things were going swimmingly. Appetites were whetted. The sale was almost made.

But just then something a little different happened that set us to thinking a bit. A colleague offered the opinion, in a friendly enough way, that (and here I quote as best I can from memory) “general education just sucks the life out of our majors.” Vivid imagery! What did he mean? Is there any truth to it? We had a packed agenda and didn’t have time for a full exploration, but were able to discuss a couple of points, and here’s the kernel of the sentiment as I see it.

Gen ed does take up (notice the variant verb phrase) a substantial number of credit hours that some students and perhaps even more faculty in certain disciplines would like to devote to the major field. Add to that the occasional uninspired lecture course in a seemingly irrelevant subject, with the occasional multiple choice exam as the only activity where students demonstrate their learning, and the sucking sound becomes audible, and intelligible. “Why exactly,” it seems to be saying, “am I wasting my time in a rote learning exercise on disposable content that I’ll never remember past the final, much less use?”

To counter these understandable feelings, we in the liberal education game need to do a better job in three areas. First, we need to make the case—passionately, articulately, and repeatedly—that to an educated person in this complex, changing world, no knowledge or skill is irrelevant, that it is the height of academic arrogance to think that any one major should hold a monopoly on what a student might need to know or be able to do to succeed and to live a fuller, more engaged life. Second, we must strive to animate every general education course with the excitement of its core discipline (see previous post, “Audience Development”) and to find ways (and resources to match our imaginations) to encourage and demonstrate active student learning even in the largest classes. And third, on a somewhat longer timescale, we should take a hard look at the number and kind of requirements that form our general education program. It’s a sensible and fairly traditional model, but there are others, and perhaps a confluence of the immense brainpower gathered at this university can come up with a variation that is less apt to provoke the kind of feeling that sparked this posting.

Tags: general education, liberal arts