In the midst of a rapidly changing world, the question of how U.S. colleges and universities can best equip students to be responsive to change is essential. More than ever before, graduates from U. S. institutions of higher education need the critical-thinking skills and ethical commitment that are necessary for both economic development and world citizenship. In the view of the presidents and chancellors who comprise AASCU’s Forum on Liberal Education. the solution to this question for institutions of higher education can be found in the liberal arts, meaning, essentially, the arts and sciences, and, more explicitly, the habits of thinking and caring that the liberal arts teach. Given the vital importance of these habits to students’ and communities’ well-being, the Forum recommends that all AASCU presidents and chancellors continue to promote the liberal arts on their campuses, explore new ways that these studies can help prepare students for meaningful lives, and make that exploration a high personal priority.

Our universities and colleges must educate students to become leaders in diverse careers and contribute to the reaching of regional, national, and global long-term goals. The value of knowledge about our own deep cultural roots as well as the cultures of societies in other parts of the world; an ethical commitment to serving others; and the practice of leadership within small communities, as well as in business and industry, will be key.

A fundamental challenge that AASCU chief executive officers face, then, is to lead our institutions toward a strengthening of liberal education as the bedrock of all professional specialization—a strengthening that will depend, for its success, on effectively illuminating the centrality of a liberal education to all undergraduates’ education.

We agree with Henry Rosovsky in our view of the meaning of, and vital necessity of, a liberal education. In The University: An Owner’s Manual (1990), Rosovsky posits that a scientific definition of liberal education (or general education, which he equates with it) is impossible, for education is not a science. He approaches a definition by offering the following quotation from Howard Lee Nostrand’s “Introduction” to his translation of José Ortega y Gasset’s Mission of the University (1946):

General education means the whole development of an individual, apart from his occupational training. It includes the civilizing of his life purposes, the refining of his emotional reactions, and the maturing of his understanding about the nature of things according to the best knowledge of our time.

It is not an easy matter for a chief executive officer to emphasize the importance of liberal education above all: expanding technological possibilities will continue to exert pressure on us to educate our students narrowly. The need for highly specialized individuals that, surely, will continue, could distract us from the fundamental need to stress the values of a liberal education—the habits of mind and character that it develops.

Those habits include, of course, critical thinking rather than limited thought; teamwork rather than unilateral decision-making; and problem-solving abilities which are, thereby, comprehensive.

Recent reports from business and industry (The New York Times, for example), corroborate the fact that people hired today—in order to become leaders of enterprises of all types over the next 40 years—must have the following abilities and qualities coming into a job:

Critical thinking—“Thinking Like a Mountain,” as Aldo Leopold put it—that habit of mind to be objectively attuned to that which is not readily perceived;

Cultural appreciation of the ways we gain knowledge and understanding—of the universe, of society, and of ourselves, which demands knowledge of the biological and physical sciences; fluency in the languages of other nations; awareness of religious and philosophical conceptions of humankind; knowledge of the arts;

Adaptability—the ability and commitment to continue to learn and to grow; to listen; to reconsider original positions, given new knowledge; to work in teams; to work with people of diverse backgrounds; to communicate effectively to a variety of audiences, in speech and in writing;

Ethical commitment
—to act for the betterment of the public good.

Consider what a focus on the centrality of a liberal education to any undergraduate education can enable the nation’s public colleges and universities to offer business and industry:

An assurance that each student is individually challenged to develop the kind of brain, the habits of mind and of heart that distinguish an educated person from one who just “gets a degree”;

A high degree of certainty of the outcomes the institution can guarantee the larger community, in which that student will be an employee and contributing citizen. Institutions in which liberal education is emphasized are places where students cannot hide, cannot use their energies to avoid the experiences and skills and exposures we want them to have and that we know they will need—critical thinking, cultural appreciation, adaptability (agility), and the development of a commitment to contributing to the public good.

Alan Greenspan has stated that, “Critical awareness and the abilities to hypothesize, to interpret, and to communicate are essential elements of successful innovation in a conceptual-based economy. The ability to think abstractly is fostered through exposure to philosophy, literature, music, art, and languages. Liberal education . . . spawn[s] a greater understanding of all aspects of living.”

As John Buchan said in 1938, that focus on education should endow graduates with three qualities: “humility, humanity, and humor” (qtd in Rosovsky, p. 101).

We ask AASCU members at large to join us, the presidents and chancellors who comprise the Forum on Liberal Education, in strengthening attention across the country to the essential values to students, their future employers, and their future communities, provided by a liberal education.

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