Paul S. Wright Professor of Christian Studies, Lewis and Clark College
A recent column by Cornel West in the Washington Post regretting Howard University’s decision to dissolve its Classics Department stirred some thoughts on the importance not only of that discipline for the liberal arts (but see now also a column in the New York Times that serves as a useful rejoinder to West and food for yet more thought.), but also on what it is to teach in a liberal arts college and at Lewis & Clark in particular.
A colleague noted in view of West’s handwringing essay, even if with a certain edge in his tone, that Lewis & Clark is to be commended for having no plans to end Classics. To which I replied, “And in times of concern for return-on-investment, why would we?”
Our 100-level Classics course fills annually, our Classics 200- and 300-level courses likewise fill or nearly so, and courses offered by ancillary departments (Art, English, History, Philosophy, Religious Studies) also enroll well. Staffed at the bare minimum, we serve a significant number of students. There’s some bang-for-the buck.
And notably, the students in these courses are majors in a wide range of departments in the college—in fact the minority are Classics majors.
It was in answering the question, “Why do these courses enroll so well?” that I came to my thoughts on West’s column as it relates more broadly to liberal arts education and teaching, and particularly the shape of and those endeavors at Lewis & Clark.
These courses enroll well at least in part because the College still attracts students who value what West refers to as “soul-forming education” (aka “the liberal arts”). They appreciate that to be liberally educated is, in West’s words, more than mere “schooling.” As West goes on to say, it is, “more than the acquisition of skills, the acquisition of labels and the acquisition of jargon. Schooling is not education. Education draws out the uniqueness of people to be all that they can be in the light of their irreducible singularity. It is the maturation and cultivation of spiritually intact and morally equipped human beings.”
In view of this, West writes: “[W]e, as a culture, have embraced from the youngest age utilitarian schooling at the expense of soul-forming education. To end this spiritual catastrophe, we must restore true education, mobilizing all of the intellectual and moral resources we can to create human beings of courage, vision and civic virtue.”
While I have little hope that some of our peers who have turned away from soul-forming education to mere schooling will “restore true education” as West wishes, I do believe Lewis & Clark can easily preserve it.
And again, why not?
Indeed, we have a faculty that is uniquely well positioned to deliver better than virtually all of our peers the soul-forming education West yearns for.
How is that true? Think of it this way.
A soul-forming education—the liberal arts—is the art of cultivating in people an appreciation of multiple, critically-examined frames of reference, ways of seeing the world. In times of enormous social, political, economic, cultural, and environmental challenges this appreciation is essential to personal and communal flourishing; it is when we have the capacity to see the world through our neighbors’ eyes and the challenges which we face from a variety of perspectives that we can be the “human beings of courage, vision and civic virtue” today’s world needs.
Here at Lewis & Clark we are unusually well equipped to provide this kind of education for our students. We have a faculty which ensures in a manner many of our peers cannot student access to a super-charged diversity of critically examined ways of seeing, explaining, and interpreting the world.
Not only do we offer the range of departments and disciplines that make that sort of education possible; we also have, by happenstance and historical circumstance, remarkable intellectual diversity within the disciplines represented in the College’s departments.
As a consequence, students who have the wisdom to resist hitching their wagon to any one of our perspectives and to delve instead as deeply as possible into the many frames of reference available here—those students can leave Lewis & Clark with an abnormally rich breadth of vision, a bag stuffed full of different glasses through which to see the world and its problems critically and constructively, and in empathy with their neighbors and peers. That’s a soul well formed.
And yes, to come full circle, that, I think, explains the abiding appeal of Classics—and of English, History, Religious Studies, Sociology, Biology, Physics, and all the rest. Many students come here because they know they can get that increasingly rare soul-forming education; a few of them even understand before arriving that this place is especially strong in providing that; and the best who leave here degree in hand appreciate that they have had a rare privilege in getting that education from such a richly diverse faculty as the one at Lewis & Clark. That’s a soul formed well for courage, vision, and civic virtue in a time sorely in need of all three qualities.
So, for my money, the College should aggressively market the promise of that education as we raise friends, funds, and enrollment for the college. Such a strategy won’t solve all of the challenges the College faces today and in coming years, but it will certainly go a long way toward meeting many of them. Cornel West might even think to point in our direction for an example of what he so eloquently yearns for in American education today.
And one last word. I hope my colleagues at Lewis & Clark understand what this means for them: If I’m right about our appeal and how we can use it to draw students to the College even as enrollment challenges intensify, what we are asked to do to ensure the College flourishes into the future is essentially what we have all trained and prepared ourselves to do—share our passion for the ideas we live and breathe day by day, engage our students with them in our teaching, conversations, and mentoring, and find ways to bring them to bear in new ways that meet our students’ needs as they face their challenging and complex futures.
Indeed, we have a faculty that is uniquely well positioned to deliver better than virtually all of our peers the soul-forming education West yearns for.
How is that true? Think of it this way.
A soul-forming education—the liberal arts—is the art of cultivating in people an appreciation of multiple, critically-examined frames of reference, ways of seeing the world. In times of enormous social, political, economic, cultural, and environmental challenges this appreciation is essential to personal and communal flourishing; it is when we have the capacity to see the world through our neighbors’ eyes and the challenges which we face from a variety of perspectives that we can be the “human beings of courage, vision and civic virtue” today’s world needs.
Here at Lewis & Clark we are unusually well equipped to provide this kind of education for our students. We have a faculty which ensures in a manner many of our peers cannot student access to a super-charged diversity of critically examined ways of seeing, explaining, and interpreting the world.
Not only do we offer the range of departments and disciplines that make that sort of education possible; we also have, by happenstance and historical circumstance, remarkable intellectual diversity within the disciplines represented in the College’s departments.
As a consequence, students who have the wisdom to resist hitching their wagon to any one of our perspectives and to delve instead as deeply as possible into the many frames of reference available here—those students can leave Lewis & Clark with an abnormally rich breadth of vision, a bag stuffed full of different glasses through which to see the world and its problems critically and constructively, and in empathy with their neighbors and peers. That’s a soul well formed.
And yes, to come full circle, that, I think, explains the abiding appeal of Classics—and of English, History, Religious Studies, Sociology, Biology, Physics, and all the rest. Many students come here because they know they can get that increasingly rare soul-forming education; a few of them even understand before arriving that this place is especially strong in providing that; and the best who leave here degree in hand appreciate that they have had a rare privilege in getting that education from such a richly diverse faculty as the one at Lewis & Clark. That’s a soul formed well for courage, vision, and civic virtue in a time sorely in need of all three qualities.
So, for my money, the College should aggressively market the promise of that education as we raise friends, funds, and enrollment for the college. Such a strategy won’t solve all of the challenges the College faces today and in coming years, but it will certainly go a long way toward meeting many of them. Cornel West might even think to point in our direction for an example of what he so eloquently yearns for in American education today.
And one last word. I hope my colleagues at Lewis & Clark understand what this means for them: If I’m right about our appeal and how we can use it to draw students to the College even as enrollment challenges intensify, what we are asked to do to ensure the College flourishes into the future is essentially what we have all trained and prepared ourselves to do—share our passion for the ideas we live and breathe day by day, engage our students with them in our teaching, conversations, and mentoring, and find ways to bring them to bear in new ways that meet our students’ needs as they face their challenging and complex futures.
Rob, thanks for this eloquent statement. I agree very much that we should be offering what you describe, and I hope that we in fact do so. But how do we know whether that's true? I've certainly heard students and alums complain about a certain uniformity of thought, particularly in regard to political opinions. (I've also heard praise for faculty whose politics may be known to be of one stripe or another but who create a classroom climate where all feel welcome to express their views). But again, how do we know that our students really feel free to "delve into the many frames of reference"?
ReplyDeleteJust seeing this today (5/22), so apologies for such a delayed response.
DeleteIt’s a good question. For my part, I know it’s true because I take every opportunity that arises in teaching and advising to invite students to take this approach to their liberal arts education, and because some students who have heard my exhortation one or more times take it seriously, and report back that it works for them. I market the promise of that education.
So, I guess the better answer is: we will know it’s true that students delve into the many frames of reference if we invite them to do so, gently instruct them on how to do so, and manifest such practices in our own teaching as best we can.
And a related aside for your amusement: this is why I was the only vote against the (successful) move to end the 60-credit limit on a student’s major. ;)