Essay: Liberal arts colleges

As descendents of the traditions of Western civilization, Americans naturally hoped to continue the educational traditions established in Greece and Rome during classical antiquity; the “ars liberalis,” literally “arts or principled practices worthy of a free person,” were understood to be the subjects necessary for fulfilling participation in civic life. These subjects were divided into the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and logic) and the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy). For our intellectual ancestors, the skills honed in these diverse and complex fields allowed them to think critically, communicate effectively, strategize, and develop many other personal and mindful capacities. Today, more than two thousand years since those traditions were established, the liberal arts are still revered for their inherent intellectual value. The academic subjects that fall under the umbrella term “liberal arts education” today all grew from the traditions of ancient Greece. Rather than the broad foci of the trivium and quadrivium, which simply aren’t specialized enough for the academic and social climate of today, the “new” liberal arts comprise literature, philosophy, social sciences, physical sciences, and mathematics. These subjects are widely thought to contribute positively to cognitive ability, cultural relativism, writing abilities, personal development, interest in charitable action, and many other outcomes.
The American Liberal Arts College, an institution essentially unique to America, was modeled after the Cambridge and Oxford universities, which directly sought to perpetuate the learning and teaching atmosphere of the Greek and Roman schools. Alas, the academic climate of America is in danger today. Recently, there has been much speculation on the worth of the liberal arts; sometimes from the perspective that professional, career-directed major fields are more practical and inherently useful. It seems that the age of information has laid upon man a lazy-yet-entitled complex. When all of the information in the world is accessible at your fingertips at any moment, it seems to me that knowing you could learn something is just as satisfying as actually learning it. We no longer have to be intellectually elite to live in luxury and comfort. Jeans, mattresses, hamburgers, central heating; all of these things meant a lot more a hundred years ago. The liberal arts are under attack; they are politicized and simplified because their potential isn’t directly obvious by today’s quantitative standards. The value of learning in a supportive classroom environment from a thoughtful, masterful professor alongside engaged and creative peers is blocked from view by a high-definition screen.
Distance learning, massive research institutions, and community colleges aren’t designed to foster the sort of learning experience associated with lifelong positive outcomes. They are degree mills, created to quickly and minimalistically educate a growing workforce in one of many specialized fields. They turn students into welders, nurses, entrepreneurs, police officers, engineers, advertisers, etcetera. I don’t mean to argue that these professions are unimportant; in fact, all are vital in today’s world. However, these areas don’t do much for the personal and intellectual fulfillment of the individual in the long run. Specifically, these sort of career tracks aren’t associated with the lifelong benefits associated with the learning and social environments of private liberal arts colleges. As the world edges into virtuality, it is critical now more than ever that we establish the value of face to face interaction, reasoning skills, argument, and perspective taking, among so many other aspects of social life. Keeping the legacy of the liberal arts in mind, it’s definitely not too late to shift the way today’s society defines a good and fulfilling life.
There have been many studies done in the past half-century on the value of a liberal arts education. These investigations have been designed to define this sort of education, elaborate on its immediate and long-term outcomes in contrast with other types of educational institutions, and ultimately to defend the integrity of these disciplines. Let’s begin with what defines a “Liberal Arts College” (LAC) today.
It is easier to qualify LACs by discussion of what they are not. They are not community colleges, public research institutions, research universities, or trade schools (Astin 1999, ASHE 2005). Alexander Astin,
Ernest T. Pascarella, one of the most eminent scholars and defenders of the liberal arts, has written extensively on what qualifies these types of institutions. In an essay titled “Lessons from the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education,” Pascarella and his colleague, Charles Blaich, define liberal learning as being “characterized by a broad range of compelling and desirable outcomes– among others, effective reasoning and problem solving, a capacity for lifelong learning, the ability to interact with people from different cultures, moral character, and leadership.” From this definition it can be understood that defining a Liberal Arts Education (LAE) is best done by measuring the outcomes of this sort of education. The report brilliantly illustrates the findings of this pioneering study.
Many studies in the past 20 years (often involving Pascarella) have sought to define these outcomes from the perspective of American college students. The Wabash National Survey (WNS), often considered the ultimate authority on liberal arts outcomes, is at the forefront of defining what practices and benefits are empirically associated with this type of education. The WNS is a multi-institution, longitudinal study aimed at identifying the collegiate experiences that foster liberal learning (Pascarella & Blaich 2013: 7). The 2006 cohort consisted of data from 19 institutions, gathered from incoming full-time first year students. The sample was selected randomly in the case of larger institutions, while smaller colleges surveyed the entire incoming freshman class.
These students were assessed three separate times. The first was upon matriculation, where the material covered included general background information such as demographics, family backgrounds, and other material to control measurement of outcomes, as well as pre college measures of personal and cognitive development adapted from existing instruments. These instruments were designed to measure the incoming class’s pre-existing levels of what are widely considered to be “liberal arts outcomes.” Examples include Effective Reasoning and Problem Solving, measured with items from the Critical Thinking Test of the College Assessment of Academic Proficiency, while students’ Inclination to Inquire and be Life-Long Learners were measured with the Need for Cognition Scale, and Positive Attitude toward Literacy Activities Scale. The second assessment was administered in spring of 2007, at the end of the student’s first year. This assessment asked students about their college experiences rather than their demographics and backgrounds; the same scales designed to measure personal and intellectual outcomes were administered. The third assessment was given in spring of 2010, when the freshman class surveyed upon matriculation was due to graduate. This third assessment was identical to the second. The first two assessments were administered to about 3,100 four- and two-year college students while the final assessment was given to about 2,200 four-year students. It’s important to note that the end-of-first-year results include community college student responses, while the end-of-fourth-year results do not. This is because of the 2-year nature of community college education.
The data was analyzed by estimating the impact of various college experiences on specific liberal learning outcomes. Extensive confounding influences were controlled for, consisting of a student’s pre-college ACT/SAT scores, race, sex, parent’s level of education, pre-college academic motivation, academic major, work responsibilities during college, place of residence during college, and the type of institution (liberal arts college, research university, regional institution, and community college). If the confounding variables were found to negate the hypothesized relationship, the results were nullified.
The findings of this study illustrate the academic and non-academic benefits of attending a liberal arts college or receiving a liberal arts education. These benefits are based on students’ perceptions of many factors believed to be associated with liberal learning, including: clear and organized classroom instruction, deep-learning experiences, diversity experiences, high-impact/good practices, and other factors.
Perhaps the most significant finding of the WNS are the far-reaching, long lasting impacts of high-quality classroom instruction. A 10-item scale was created to measure student’s perception of two instructional characteristics: instructional organization and instructional clarity (Pascarella & Blaich 2013: 9). The researchers hypothesized that positive student perceptions regarding these areas at the end-of-first-year assessment would be reflected in the four-year growth of effective reasoning and problem solving skills and the inclination to inquire and pursue lifelong learning. Even after the extensive confounding influences were controlled for, there were statistically significant, positive relationships between students’ perception of clear and organized classroom instruction and the hypothesized growth in cognitive abilities were established. This means that when students understand that their professors and classroom environment are supportive to their learning and intellectual growth, they are more likely to cultivate personal interests in cognitive and personal development. This finding holds true regardless of the type of institution. Research by John Braxton and his colleagues also established a relationship between students’ positive perceptions of clear and organized classroom instruction and re-enrollment the next academic year. Their hypothesis, that positive student perceptions would indicate likelihood of re-enrollment, was supported even under the controls mentioned before.
Overall, these findings indicate that effective teaching practices are not only valuable in the classroom, but motivate students to pursue learning on their own and to strive for cognition. The broad, long-term benefits of these qualities are a product of a distinctly liberal arts education, where the experience of learning is far more than busy work en route to a particular degree and career path. Beyond achievement in any one given course, the benefits of high-quality instruction and well-managed class time foster individual yearning for intellectual growth. Furthermore, the teaching skills most highly revered by student respondents can be taught. This means that faculty, regardless of their sort of institution, can learn how to more effectively illustrate and organize course material, use class time efficiently, and give clear explanations of content in order to make it accessible to students. Pascarella and Blaich argue that “institutional investments in programs designed to improve faculty’s teaching skills may have institution-level returns beyond those realized in specific courses” (2013: 9).
Alongside the benefits of clear and organized classroom instruction, the impacts of deep-learning experiences also have broad and far-reaching effects on student growth during and after college. Thomas Nelson Laird of Indiana University designed three measures of what’s considered “deep learning” from existing items in the National Survey of Student Engagement, which all responding students in spring 2007 and spring 2010 filled out. Deep-learning experiences were hypothesized to cultivate cognitive skills, a student orientation toward cognitive activity, and the use of principled/post-conventional reasoning in moral dilemmas (Pascarella & Blaich 2013: 10; Laird et al 2014). The three categories proposed were higher-order, integrative, and reflective learning. Patterns were established that supported the hypothesized relationship between deep approaches to learning and the proposed outcomes. This is important because it establishes that deep-learning experiences have impacts on cognition independent of clear and organized classroom instruction.
The focus of much recent research on liberal arts education has been its impact on cognitive abilities. The evidence discussed so far hasn’t proven direct effects on measures of cognitive development exclusive to liberal arts colleges; however, it clearly suggests that