Exploring Value and Model of Liberal Arts Education in the Age of Globalization: Capabilities for Sustainability

• In Event: Curriculum, internationalization and development

Proposal

Facing with fast changes in current society, university graduates nowadays need various capabilities to survive and thrive in their workplace filled with new challenges and uncertainties. Professional expertise cannot guarantee “a clearly defined career path” and the knowledge economy requires “a more flexible, globally competent, and critical labor force” (Godwin & Altbach, 2016, p. 6). Besides, globalization, rapidly changing technology, and the evolution of the knowledge economy require critical thinking and lifelong learning competency, which are the hallmark of liberal arts education (Godwin & Pickus, 2017). Liberal arts education cultivates students through free inquiry and creative expression, which is a good preparation for vital social challenges, such as environmental sustainability, public health, social inequality, and natural disasters around the globe (Godwin & Pickus, 2017).

Originated from Socrates’ and Aristotle’s educational ideas of cultivating free citizen in Greco-Roman society (Nussbaum, 1998), liberal arts education has been developed in traditional British institutions and well developed in the North American context (Jiang, 2014). Outside America, liberal arts education has taken root and flourished in foreign lands. It was the distinctive feature of higher education in China in the first half of the 20th century (Kirby, 2017). Founded in 1955, Tunghai University inherited the grand tradition of the 13 Christian universities in China and keeps on promoting liberal arts education (Tunghai University, n.d.). Liberal arts education could also be found in postwar Japan with strong American support and influence (Etzrodt, Hrebenar, Lacktorin, & Nilson, 2016). In recent years, there are new experimentations with the liberal arts model in Hong Kong, India, and mainland China. Most recently, with the collaboration between Yale University and the National University of Singapore, Yale-NUS was founded in 2011 as an exploration for liberal arts education in the 21st century (Yang, 2016).

Previous literature has studied liberal arts education revival around the global. Stross (2018) argued the strengths of liberal arts education graduates for employment from Stanford University. International Christian University in Japan has been promoting liberal arts education for half a century with its distinctive feature of transforming lives of students (Nishimura, 2016). Shi and Lu (2016) studied different characteristics of liberal arts education in elite universities in China. In recent years, to enhance students’ competitiveness in the global society, liberal arts education is experimented with in small-scale institutions. Modrowski (2016) examined the liberal arts implementation in an institution in India. Despite advocation and supports, there are challenges for liberal arts education, such as, unclear focus in curriculum, small-scale restraint, and Western ideology dominance. What are the core values of liberal arts education and how an applicable model of liberal arts education based on local contexts and traditions could be developed are the questions for both researchers and policy makers in different countries.

The main challenges for current experimentation with liberal arts education, as Godwin and Altbach (2016) summarized, are quick employment for graduates, financial problems, and a shortage of qualified faculty in the age of mass higher education. In a world where utilitarianism and neoliberalism dominate, the most important factors for investment in education are the outcomes. As was argued by Logan and Curry (2015), the primary attention in education is paid to what the return on investment should be in a business-minded culture (Logan & Curry, 2015). Liberal arts education, focusing on skills such as writing, logic, independent thought, and whole person cultivation, has no direct return in immediately remunerative employment.

In this new trend of liberal arts education, many trial models have been proposed by scholars. For example, Zha Qiang (2017) proposed that the crucial attributes of university graduates required for the 21st century are collaboration, social and economic entrepreneurialism, cultural intelligence, persistence, and creativity. Yong Zhao (2017) agreed that smart machines could not realize and exhibit these human characteristics, which makes liberal arts education necessary for the age of machine learning and Artificial Intelligence. A new model for Stanford education has also been proposed. In this new model, the students are expected to couple their disciplinary pursuit with the purpose of learning, with the help of a teaching hub for core competencies such as Scientific Analysis, Quantitative Reasoning, Social Inquiry, Moral and Ethical Reasoning, Aesthetic Interpretation, Creative Confidence, and Communication Effectiveness, etc. (Zha, 2017).

The discussion is conducted under the theoretical framework of intrinsic value of liberal arts education. The Yale Report (1828) defended on the importance of classics in liberal arts education curriculum and argued that “discipline of the mind” (the ability to think) is more important that “furniture of the mind” (knowledge). According to Newman (1992), the aim of university education is to cultivate the outlook, creative mind, way of thinking, and social and civic interaction capacity (Newman, 1992). In Harvard Report – General Education for a Free Society (1946) it is emphasized that the purpose of education is not only to impart knowledge but also for the training of the mind with certain aptitudes and attitudes. These abilities include thinking effectively, communicating thought, making relevant judgments, and discriminating among values (Harvard Committee, 1946).

It is important for us to think about the value of liberal arts education in this age of fast changes. The study brings insights for the exploration of liberal arts education model. The answers to questions, such as, whether is it a unique feature of American education, how can it be adapted to other contexts, is it outdated, is it elite-oriented, and how can it be implemented in universal education, should be crucial to the exploration of liberal arts education in the age of globalization. The study helps to further build empirical research for examining the outcome of liberal arts education. This study brings the contribution from previous study and is original in looking for insights from previous studies with a comprehensive and synthesized review.

Author

• Leping Mou, OISE, University of Toronto