Kamber begins his speech
Kamber begins his speech
Several authors, like Bill Coplin and Marshal Gregory have very strong views about liberal education. Coplin, believes schools should be more job preparation oriented, while Gregory feels the need of liberal arts isn’t just about getting a job, but about being able to find our purpose in life and live our lives fully. Another article written by Jerry Logan and Janel Curry expresses feelings very similar to those of Gregory’s. The approach taken by Gregory, Logan, and Curry gives a very strong case for why Christians should pursue a liberal education. Christian liberal arts education prepares people for their careers, while also preparing people to be ready to do whatever God may ask of them.…
“The Death of Liberal Arts”, by Nancy Cook, does make a valid point that students should not only know skills that will get them a job, but the skills to analyze and dig deeper into given information. Nancy Cook talks about how Centenary College in Shreveport, La. took out liberal arts classes and added new professional programs that teach about skills that students will need to obtain a job. After understand the article, one can disagree with Centenary College’s decision in cutting the liberal arts classes and how this information relates to Fahrenheit 451. After understanding the article, “The Death of Liberal Arts” one can see that Centenary College’s decision was the wrong choice and how the text relates to Fahrenheit 451. Liberal…
In his book, Why Teach? In Defense of a Real Education, Mark Edmunson includes an essay titled “Liberal Arts & Lite Entertainment in which he talks about numerous phenomena happening in American school systems. About halfway through the essay, while on a rant about colleges competing against one another for students, Edmundson adds that individual departments also contend for students, and more specifically how the humanities “now must struggle to attract students” (14). The professor offers a couple of effects that loosening up has had on the branch. First, he claims that grading is not tough and students are hardly allowed to fail.…
Nowadays, education is more and more common, most of the people who live in developed or developing country have a chance to go to school. However, the purpose of learning knowledge is changed, a lot of people who go to university because they are told that the degree is a guarantee of making good money. Since the purpose is making more money and due to the fact that liberal art majors are not directly relate to most jobs, a lot of people argue that Liberal art is a useless major, and people should take business or science major. They believe that taking liberal art majors is not beneficial to their career. In Edward Conard’s essay “We don’t need more humanities majors”, he basically mentions that humanities major…
When this piece was written, Stephen Burd was a senior writer for the Chronicle of Higher Education and had been working in that capacity for nearly a decade. In this context it makes sense that he would write on such things as the "working-class student". White male, middle-aged, middle-class, bachelors degree in history- all of these are attributed to Mr. Burd (though none of these things are explicitly referenced in his writing). In this piece there is no overt evidence that the aforesaid attributes influence his opinion. In general, albeit with only superficial evidence, there appears to be little reason for Mr. Burd to write with ulterior motives.…
Robert Harris, a renowned writer and experienced professor, published “On the Purpose of a Liberal Art Education” in 1991. He was astounded by how many students he heard mumbling about a generalized education plan; therefore, he felt the compulsive need to explain why a general education not only gives a first-year student a foundation for later learning, but also improves a student’s life. Before Harris could write his paper, he had to investigate the claim; thus, Newman’s The Idea of University shaped Harris's opinion on a liberal education. Newman and Harris both agree that a generalized education helps train the mind to see culture in every situation. Moreover, this article states that a liberal arts education will teach a student how to think, how to learn, how to see the world as a whole, how to become a good teacher, and how to be happier.…
In his article “The New Liberal Arts” Sanford J Ungar, President of Goucher College advocates a radical clarification of several misconceptions about the liberal arts degree. He believes that these issues are the main reasons for the decline in liberal arts education today. He insists that a liberal arts education is still a valuable degree in modern society.…
Jeremiah Conway writes The liberal Arts and Contemporary Culture and is bothered about how liberal arts is being taken for granted. He feels that this is a problem and it needs to be addressed. He makes it known that children will lack becoming educated in the future because science and technology is hindering there learning. If this problem is not approached then liberal arts would be ignored. They will be at risk of living in this world without any regards of life. Conway used an example of a “fish” not knowing what water was. This informs readers that people take education and life for graduated (2010, 4). What children do not understand is that they have the opportunity to gain knowledge but cannot due to technology and money. It becomes hard for them understand that being educated in liberal arts is better than having a one-track mind. If they want to become a scientist they will only learn the scientific method and equations. Moreover, they may not know basic home economic skill because they do not have an understanding of other disciplines.…
People "no longer bother with" Liberal Art subjects such as Philosophy, Sociology and Dance (Urbanek 2). Those who gain a degree in humanities have spent more time and money than students who have achieved a degree in Science, and are considered to be "wasting time upon dead languages'' (Carnegie qtd. in Fish). Also some liberal arts subjects require costly investments on equipments even before you can have any sort of education. Therefore only people who "plan their college experience according to their own interest" are continuing with the study of liberal arts (Urbanek…
Liberal Education’s main purpose in not only to train someone for a specific position, but also to create or develop skills that can be utilized in any profession. However, I believe that the liberal arts are under pressure and in danger in today’s society. The threat that is overwhelming Liberal Education is cuts in programs and funding in private and public schools.…
The most valuable, interesting, and useful that I learned is the value of liberal arts education comes from the diversity of subjects. As a liberal arts major, I can do anything I want with the degree. I believe that there are a lot of employers that would recommend a liberal arts education as the best way to prepare for success in today’s world. Some of my military retired colleagues say they would give hiring preference to college graduates with skill that enable them to contribute to innovation in the workplace. That’s because the degree in liberal arts provided me the abilities I need to work and contribute anywhere. The purpose this degree is not to prepare me for one specific job. It’s to give me a broad ability to adapt to a multitude…
“The New Liberal Arts” is an article written by Sanford J. Ungar, who is a president of Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland. In the beginning of his article, Ungar wrote, “Hard economic times inevitably bring scrutiny of all accepted ideals and institutions, and this time around the liberal arts education has been especially hard hit.” In other words, Ungar means that recent economic recessions have made a huge impact on what people think of going for a liberal arts degree. In his essay, Ungar lists seven misperceptions and how he reacts to them. The most common misperception that Ungar identified is that liberal arts degrees are no longer affordable. The cost for liberal arts education is very expensive while most families are struggling with the economic is going down. Thus, the second misperception is, with a liberal arts degree, it is hard for graduates to find a good job. Moreover, liberal arts degree seems to be irrelevant and unimportant especially for low income families and first-generation college students. Other misperceptions pointed out by Ungar are: the STEM (science, technology, engineer, math) are what people need to learn right now instead of arts, American education system is too old-fashioned to stick with liberal arts education, and while the cost for liberal arts education is very high, the outcome of appears to show no gain in productivity for the ways graduates do their work. Finally, Ungar states that one of the misperception is because the United States is being led by a liberal Democrat, who seems to bring more problems to the country than solving the existing problems, so it is better for the young adolescence not to follow that same road. Among Ungar’s entire list of misperceptions, I found several of them are strongly disagreeable because he is a president of a liberal arts college, so it’s undeniable that he holds biases, and personally, I think whether to go for a liberal arts degree is mainly an individual…
To start off, we need to define what a liberal arts education actually is. A liberal arts education is often known as general education, or gen. eds., in college. It is all the classes that a majority…
According to Efficiency in liberal education; a study of comparative instructional costs for different ways of organizing teaching-learning in a liberal arts college, another key element supporting the mission of liberal arts colleges is that students who attend a liberal arts college are more likely to be hired for jobs, and accepted into graduate school (Bowen). Liberal arts schools, such as Transylvania University, strive to teach kids critical thinking and writing skills, as well as how to formally present their ideas. Teachers have fewer students, and more time to analytically grade student’s homework and essays. Liberal arts professors may have to grade 20 essays whereas at a state university, teachers may have up to 500 essays to grade (Masci). It’s doubtful that a teacher who has 500 essays to review will be able to provide the same help and provide the same critical skills than a teacher who only has…
Combining the educational system will also allow students to become a well-rounded person; also, with the change in time, the students will not have to go back to school to acquire other skills. Bok states that the “vocational majors have an easier time than liberal arts graduates in finding an initial job in business and tend to advance faster and earn more money during their first 10 years of work” (38). However, he then argues that “after 10 years the pictures become more complicated” (Bok 40). He also states that “liberal art teachers do a better job in fostering skills such as communication skills, human relations, creativity, and “big-picture thinking” matter more” (Bok 40). In a world where students are more career oriented, no one can say that liberal education is not important because as Bok states, “companies seem destined to witness faster changes, more frequent career shifts, increasingly diverse workforces, and expanding global operations, all of which favor a broad liberal arts education” (40). This is an explanation that with time, technology is getting more advanced and both the vocational school skill as well as the liberal art skills are needed for students to become a more rounded…