Special to The Baltimore Sun
June 20, 2008
By George S. Bridges
A recent article in The Sun noted
that two more local colleges, Loyola and Villa Julie, are soon to
become universities. Both are examples of a national trend in higher
education.
In Washington state, a similar drift is occurring.
Whitman College, where I am president, is the lone remaining liberal
arts college in Washington. We view this as a great honor and an
abiding responsibility.
Are traditional liberal arts colleges at
risk or in peril? Four years ago, the Carnegie Classification of
Institutions of Higher Education listed fewer than 100 liberal arts
colleges with no graduate school where 80 percent or more of all
graduates majored in liberal arts and sciences rather than in
career-track disciplines. Other surveys show that as many as three out
of four students cite career training as their reason for enrolling in
college.
Should we at Whitman, a classic liberal arts college,
rethink our educational mission? The answer, unequivocally, is no.
Schools whose foundation is the liberal arts and whose essence is
close, collaborative education, where students are viewed as cohorts,
must continue and enhance what we do.
"Never"
has the ring of absoluteness that runs counter to the first principle
of learning that occurs at a liberal arts college. But Whitman College,
now 126 years old, will never become a university. We will not need to
in order to thrive.
Universities have enviable resources for
pre-professional training (pound for pound, so do small schools such as
Whitman), but liberal arts colleges have the greatest intellectual
property of all: exceptional teaching. Our purpose - to endow
undergraduate students with an intense liberal education that applies
to any profession or occupation in life - is clear. High
faculty-student ratios are anathema to us. Classes taught by graduate
students are unknown to us. Close dialogue and collaborative research
between faculty and students are an imperative for us. Our model must
be working, or "honors" colleges would not be a current trend among
universities.
Liberal arts colleges offer great breadth over
specialization. Our design and curriculum enrich the minds of our
students, enhance their character and stir their individual spirit. And
what better time for this to occur than when they are coming into
adulthood, discovering who they are as humans and members of a society?
The
refrain still surfaces about a degree from a liberal arts school: "What
do you intend to do with it?" If I were a graduating senior from
Whitman or Williams College or St. John's College, my short answer
would be: "Anything and everything." Students in a liberal arts college
setting learn for the sheer delight and discovery of knowledge.
The
value of that learning extends well beyond the acquisition of skills
(just as gathering information does not guarantee gaining wisdom). The
practicality of knowing thyself, the core of the liberal arts
experience, is indisputable. It informs every facet of our lives, from
personal preferences to career choices.
The practical outcomes
of a liberal arts education are myriad. Of our own recent graduates,
Thuy Dao, a meticulous researcher in our biochemistry, biophysics and
molecular biology program and the first person in her family to
graduate from college, just completed the first year of a doctoral
program at the
Johns Hopkins University
on her way to becoming a scientist. Wanjiru Kamau-Rutenberg, a politics
major, is the founder of a scholarship program for young Kenyan women.
Michael Wert, a double major in economics and BBMB, works for a major
brokerage house in San Francisco.
And then there is an alumnus
from Whitman's Class of 1971 who interviewed for the Foreign Service
shortly after he graduated. In the interview, the group threw him a
curve. They suggested that there was no such thing as American culture
and asked the young scholar to respond. He promptly reminded them that
the French poet Charles Baudelaire was greatly influenced by
Edgar Allan Poe.
He went on to explain, without a hint of indignation, how Baudelaire
was influenced by Poe. His information was brilliant, but his manner
and presence of mind were even more exemplary.
That student is
Ryan C. Crocker, ambassador to Iraq and former U.S. ambassador to
Lebanon, Kuwait, Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan. His major at Whitman
was English literature. That represents why Whitman College will never
become a university.
George S. Bridges is president of Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash.
