<p>IBClass06 - I think you are confusing endowment with operating budget.
A major state-supported flagship research university like UT-Austin has an operating budget of about $2 billion, while a small liberal arts college like Grinnell, which is one of the richest on a per-student basis, has an annual operating budget of about $115 million. Endowment income often contributes to the operating budget, but endowment and operating budget are two very different things.</p>
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<p>I agree. There is plenty “philosophical” in communications or journalism classes, for example. What is the role of a free media? What are the means by which people communicate?</p>
<p>Aristotle distinguished three kinds of knowledge: productive, practical, and theoretical. Here is a pretty good description of these distinctions and how they apply to education:
[knowledge</a> @ the informal education homepage](<a href=“http://www.infed.org/biblio/knowledge.htm]knowledge”>Aristotle on knowledge – infed.org)</p>
<p>It’s to be expected that some people only want (or primarily want) technical, vocational training. That’s fine. They can be encouraged to reflect on the implications of what they do for a living without necessarily committing 4 years to liberal arts education. In fact, I think many more people should consider an Associate Degree, perhaps postponing liberal learning until they are older than 18 (though that can become inconvenient once you acquire a spouse, a house, a dog and a couple of kids.)</p>
<p>As for noimagination’s earlier question about paintings and computer programs, I agree that a well-designed program can be elegant, even beautiful. But, it’s a very different kind of “artistic” object than a song, a poem, or a painting. We generally don’t hang excellent Java source code on the walls of museums. We generally don’t read them to each other in coffee houses. We might admire the execution, but if good code starts moving you to tears, then you probably need to get out more, get a girl(/boy) friend, or else talk to your doctor about adjusting your dose.</p>
<p>Why does it have to be so either/or though? You know, the chemical engineer doesn’t spend every single moment of his college career engaged in “vocational training.”. He may take and enjoy English lit, a language, history class, art history, whatever. You seem to want to make these all very discrete choose-one-or-the-other situations.</p>
<p>I still don’t believe that a philosophy major at a college that also offers engineering or architecture is fundamentally different from the philosophy major at a college which doesn’t. Convince me otherwise.</p>
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If someone said that a famous poem about lilies moved them to tears, would you tell them to get their nose out of the book and go out on a date? You still haven’t given me a single good reason that your kind of “artistic” is superior to mine. The reason? It’s subjective. You seem ready to shove skills such as engineering, architecture, and the sciences out as “vocational”. Just because something can be used as an actual job, do you automatically assume that it is impossible to be passionate about it? Tell me I’m wrong.</p>
<p>By the way, while I’ve never been brought to tears by Java, I have found some concepts of calculus both moving and beautiful.</p>
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Well if it were my son, I might encourage him to go share his experience with his girlfriend immediately, because he has suddenly discovered the kind of emotion that just might move her to tears.</p>
<p>I admire programmers who can write elegant code, who are committed to their work, who can work long hours totally absorbed in what they are doing. However, one brings a different sensibility to the appreciation of a great poem or painting than one brings to a software program. Great poems and paintings touch on a range of shared human experiences that the best software code does not. We expect great operas to move some people to tears. We don’t expect excellent software code to provoke the same response. We expect it to work but we don’t expect it to endure. We don’t expect our experience of it to change through multiple readings, decades apart in a lifetime.</p>
<p>I’m not saying that computer programming or engineering (or journalism or banking) are not worthy occupations, or don’t deserve the highest quality training. I think a programmer perhaps, and an architect definitely, should be liberally educated. I’m comfortable with universities like Georgetown or Northwestern that support both liberal arts majors and pre-professional programs. But I also think there is a place for schools like many of the best liberal arts colleges, where those programs are excluded. I’ve attended both kinds of schools and the atmosphere can be very different. The “shop talk” is different. Just as the shop talk at MIT would be different.</p>
<p>By the way, I just heard a very interesting interview on NPR with a guy named Matthew Crawford, who has written a new book called Shop Class as Soulcraft. He has a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in Political Philosophy. Well, he quit his job running a Washington, DC think-tank to run a motorcycle repair shop instead. He insists he does more thinking repairing bikes than he did in the think tank.</p>
<p>So there you have it. It’s a big country.</p>
<p>^ I think you dodged my question. You allege that programs such as engineering are “mundane”, “overt career training”, and “things of the vocational flesh”. I suppose the idea that someone might pursue engineering because of a love of the subject and an interest in the implementation of science is ridiculous to you - they must just want to get a job. And puzzling through the intricacies of programming to create some hilariously obfuscated code is clearly not intellectual or done purely for pleasure - it could only aim towards “vocational” “career training”.</p>
<p>I’d also like to see Pizzagirl’s questions above answered.</p>
<p>^ I think you misinterpreted my posts. Or maybe they were just poorly written. But here, I’ll try to be a little more clear.
No.
I’m not saying that my kind of “artistic” is superior to your kind of “artistic”. I’m saying that the appreciation of poems, paintings and music involves a different sensibility than the appreciation of computer programs, or calculus. Maybe my words are not up to explaining what I mean by that, if it is not intuitively clear. (Or, yes, maybe I’m just wrong.)</p>
<p>It’s like different kinds of love. You love your mother, you love your siblings, you love your spouse (or friends). It’s all good. But the emotions are not exactly the same in each case. There may well be some great souls who perceive the unity of it all, but I’m not there yet.
I think middsmith understood the intended irony in my above post. But it may have been inappropriate in this forum. </p>
<p>I’m a pluralist. I think real pluralism should accommodate purism. I respect schools that refuse to add Business and drop Classics just because the former would be more marketable. Of course, there is sometimes a certain snobbery, classism, that goes along with defending the liberal arts. This is worth poking a little fun at, even if we appreciate the value of the liberal arts. I personally do not believe that Swarthmore College is corrupted by having an engineering program.
Not at all. If someone pursues these things out of a love of the subject and interest in the implementation of science, I’m all for it. Though I also can very well appreciate (from long hard experience) what it means to pursue something just because one wants (and needs) a job.<br>
I don’t want to be a thread hog. I’ve already tried to answer them. Coskat gave a pretty good answer (#52). Maybe it’s someone else’s turn?</p>
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What you are saying is clear, but it doesn’t appear to support your position.
I understood the irony, but more serious posts such as #53 still express the same idea that engineering majors threaten the purity of liberal arts study. More below…
But #52 doesn’t really explain the idea that adding other programs somehow damages the environment. There are three fundamental conclusions that must be drawn to agree with this point:</p>
<p>1) Engineering (and similar) majors are primarily pursued out of a hunger for a job and are little more than factories for career-oriented skills.</p>
<p>2) Most engineers have little theoretical or academic interest in their subject or any other</p>
<p>3) The lives of traditional liberal arts students are irreparably harmed by sharing a campus with the aforementioned engineers, and they are no longer able to have their whimsical musings outside the classroom.</p>
<p>I refuse to cede any of these three points. I would welcome further debate, if you have the inclination :)</p>
<p>tk21769,</p>
<p>You mention poems, paintings, and music as inciting a feeling with a different “sensibility” than a well-designed computer program. This is because poetry, art, and music are all forms of human communication - they express emotion. These three subjects are not representative of what liberal arts is all about. What about philosophy or pure mathematics? These are essential parts of the liberal arts. Does your heart wrench when you hear a good logical argument for why morality is relative? Do you feel Nietzsche’s pain when you read his words?</p>
<p>(Those are rhetorical questions, by the way. Rhetoric, in fact, was historically one of the liberal arts, as was geometry.)</p>
<p>Admittedly, I am biased in favor of LACs, but I think they are getting an undeservedly bad rap in this thread. My own personal thoughts on some of the statements made in this thread:</p>
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<p>As I recall, some of the top LACs (see Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, Middlebury) have some of the most generous financial policies in the country and many others have a significant portion of their financial aid budget devoted to need-based aid. Go to any top LAC’s website and you will likely find the school’s commitment to diversity statement, in which socioeconomic diversity is undoubtedly mentioned. I think LACs get labeled as primarily “rich kid schools” in part because of many people’s own confirmation bias. “Only rich kids apply to LACs, and I’m definitely rich, so I not going to apply.” I am confident that real research into the topic will yield surprising results. An example from Whitman College’s website ([Offices</a> and Departments](<a href=“http://www.whitman.edu/content/financial_aid/general-information/financial-aid-statistics):%5DOffices”>http://www.whitman.edu/content/financial_aid/general-information/financial-aid-statistics):))</p>
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<p>At the very least, one can conclude that LACs are not reluctant to offer substantial financial aid to candidates that they consider qualified. As for me personally, I am receiving an extremely generous financial aid package from my current school (an LAC), without which I would not be able to attend, and I know quite a few people on campus who are in the exact situation. And frankly I see nothing about about a liberal arts education that renders a student somehow incapable of developing job-related skills after graduation. If anything, a liberal arts education prepares students to succeed in multiple fields rather than a single, specialized one. </p>
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<p>I completely agree that such a student could (and does) exist. However, I would argue that for every student like the student described above, there are many more students who gripe at being forced to take such classes because of silly “liberal arts” requirements, since there are comparatively few schools which don’t have some version of them. In response to your larger point, I would have to agree with coskat that while a liberal arts student and an engineering student could certainly physically coexist on the same campus and reasonably go about their respective businesses, it is more a question of community-building. I feel like their difference in mindsets is naturally divisive–the engineering student would probably feel indifferent or even scorn the LA student’s debate over Kant’s hypothetical and categorical imperatives. In the same way, the LA student’s may roll his eyes and decry the lack of humanity in the engineer’s discussion of the composition of such and such metalloid. Because students entering LACs have essentially accepted and embraced the goal of a liberal arts education, LACs, with their generally small student bodies and residential campuses, provide tend to create an environment where the chances of a student encountering hostility in response to an certain intellectual passion of theirs are greatly reduced. While at a university, an English major may feel unwelcome or out of place on a certain side of campus, LACs in their nature actively promote interdisciplinary, campus-wide discussion of an intellectual nature.</p>
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<p>I feel like it is safe to say that since engineering is a pre-professional major, most students pursuing that major have a specific kind of career goal in mind. Someone with a passion for equations could just as easily pursue more traditional majors such as mathematics or physics, which are offered across the board at LACs, and fulfill their intellectual desires.</p>
<p>In addition, I would cite ideology, especially among Asian parents, that views a degree in engineering, dentistry, law etc. as essentially a meal ticket to argue that many people do indeed pursue these types of degrees in order to acquire the skills to earn them a good salary. And they do–engineers and others working in highly specialized technical fields do earn more on average than liberal arts grads. </p>
<p>As I see it, engineering programs and the like are designed to provide students with a particular set of skills–skills which are generally accepted to earn a graduate on average more than most of his or her fellow graduates. Whether they are more than than remains to be seen.</p>
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I cried at the end of reading The Notebook. Does that count? 
More seriously, philosophical arguments need not necessarily be devoid of emotion. The greatest orators, for example, have combined logic and passion for their cause to enact change. I’m sure at least a few people’s hearts wretched when he gave his “I Have a Dream Speech” and my guess is that someone felt Abraham Lincoln’s pain when he gave the Gettysburg Address.</p>
<p>In conclusion, I really do think very highly of schools and programs which train students to go out and revolutionize the world. On the other hand, I think all education is valuable, even if its value alludes the most obvious metrics. A student at a LAC is not morally, emotionally, or intellectually inferior to a student at a research university. And many LAC graduates go on to be just as successful and skilled as their big-school counterparts. It is simply a case of different strokes for different folks.</p>
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The modern liberal arts evolved from the ancient and medieval Trivium (grammar, rhetoric, logic) and Quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy). Those three subjects may not be exclusively representative of the liberal arts, but they do have good standing in the modern liberal arts curriculum.
Of course.
No. Well, actually, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a good argument for that.<br>
Yes, I suppose I would. </p>
<p>As I’ve suggested, mathematics and logic (or computer programming) may incite certain feelings in a student. But the telos of a logical argument is not the same as the telos of a poem. Aristotle says in the Poetics that the result of tragedy is an emotional cleansing of the audience by invoking feelings of pity and fear. That’s not the aim of a mathematical proof, is it? </p>
<p>So if your education limits your exposure to one or the other, you may be content, you may be productive. That does not mean you are not missing something.</p>
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I’m not sure what you think my “position” is. As I said, I’m a pluralist. I think our higher education landscape can accommodate many models, including a rather conservative LAC curriculum with strong physics and mathematics majors but no engineering. Reed College probably could add an engineering program without hopelessly compromising its educational mission. St. John’s College could not (an important part of their approach is for all teachers and students in that community to explore the same works together.)</p>
<p>Now, why would any liberal arts college not want to add engineering, business, communications, etc., if they had the means to do so? Aren’t more majors always better than fewer majors? Not necessarily. Each school defines its mission focus a little differently. It’s like a string quartet deciding not to play jazz. That does not necessarily reflect a normative judgment that jazz is inferior.</p>
<p>We visited a very prestigious and selective LAC last fall. At first, my S loved it. But on an overnight stay, he discovered the school had a very strong sports orientation. At dinner, the rugby players tended to sit with the rugby players, the soccer players with the soccer players. He’s a pretty athletic guy but that’s not the atmosphere he wanted. Though I can understand why some schools prize scholar-athletes in their admissions decisions. </p>
<p>Does having engineering create a similar effect at Swarthmore? I doubt it. Does having engineering, communications, theater, business and journalism programs make Northwestern a different kind of place than the University of Chicago? I think it probably does (though I have not visited both schools). It’s not that a philosophy major can’t go off to his room and have his “whimsical musings” equally well at either school. It’s more a question of what’s going on in the social spaces. </p>
<p>By comparison, almost every B.Arch. program I’m familiar with is offered in a separate School of Architecture. There must be a reason for that, too.</p>
<p>A last thought:</p>
<p>Just adding an engineering or architecture program does not turn a liberal arts college into a tech school or a research powerhouse. Any LAC that adds such programs will likely still have the following:</p>
<p>1) Significant core requirements
2) Little or no emphasis on research
3) A strongly liberal arts-oriented student body</p>
<p>The stereotypical engineering major (who may indeed be in the majority) will not apply to a school with any of the following. Only students who want to study non-engineering classes, enjoy discussions with those outside their major, and don’t feel the need to be involved with research will choose such a school, and I think they would fit in swimmingly.</p>
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Yes, I made a similar point above, but more guardedly. So maybe we are in violent agreement here (up to a point).</p>
<p>Swarthmore College is one of very few liberal arts colleges that has an engineering program (and I’m sure you’re right, the engineers there fit in swimmingly). On the other hand, although many LACs have “pre-architecture” or “architectural studies” programs (which typically are concentrations within the Art History department), I don’t know of a single one that has a full B.Arch.-granting architecture department. We looked, in fact.</p>
<p>Historically, many LACs have added not only engineering but also architecture, business, communications, journalism, etc., etc. In other words, they became universities. The 100+ remaining LACs are the schools that chose not to do that. I’m really not sure why we don’t see more schools that resemble Oberlin, with its conservatory of music attached to a LAC, but with just an institute for design (architecture etc.) or engineering attached instead. The norm seems to be more like “punctuated equilibrium”, not evolutionary gradualism (though maybe there are more transitional species in the fossil record than I’m aware.) Some national universities do contain more or less strictly liberal arts colleges, but I’m aware of no schools that have many robust undergraduate professional/vocational majors, plus liberal arts, without graduate schools. Unless we’re talking community colleges, that is. Can we foresee a community college ever becoming the prestigious object of College Confidential “chance me” threads? Is there any good reason why not?</p>
<p>By the way, not every LAC has significant core requirements. Several (including Amherst, Wesleyan, and Sarah Lawrence) have gone to an Open Curriculum model.</p>
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<p>While I agree with you on this point, one may ask at one point you go too far down a slippery slope. Simply adding a program like engineering, which often fits quite nicely into a liberal arts setting because it can easily be studied from a more academic tradition and with less emphasis on pre-professionalism, won’t transform the entire school from LAC to non-LAC (though I bet it would change the climate quite a bit as would any major program). However, what would the effect be of adding engineering, nursing, business, architecture, public administration, etc? And does adding one of these programs make it more likely you’ll add all of these programs in the future?</p>
<p>What about research? Brown has towed the line for years between a more liberal arts college approach and a research powerhouse model, but we’ve seen with recent increases in competition amongst top tier universities, decreased funding from many sources, and increased competition amongst the professoriate that we’re being pushed more and more towards having to make sacrifices which harm undergraduates and the LAC spirit, that still dwells here, for the sake of research.</p>
<p>Schools like Wesleyan long ago had to add graduate studies in the sciences, even if they account for so few people on campus, because they could not bring in science students or professors without it. Has Wesleyan stopped being an LAC? Hardly, but again, we have to ask, are all of these minor changes happening at various institutions indicative of an oncoming sea change which will see a destruction of the model itself? Or, is this instead examples of minor tweaking which do not fundamentally alter the character of the institution but are nonetheless necessary because of changing needs of college-aged students? I’m not sure which is right.</p>
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<p>Quite a few top LACs have not done this. AFAIK, Williams, Bowdoin, Middlebury don’t have graduate science programs. Any idea why Wesleyan in particular went this route?</p>
<p>I’m not sure what the history that prompted this change was at Wesleyan, but my guess is any or all of the following:
- Growing body of research demonstrating that things like XXX University was almost always preferred by potential students over XXX College.
- The loss of some prominent faculty or inability to court hopeful faculty members due to the lack of research presence.
- Growing interest in science students to take part in work outside of traditional classroom space as part of the preparation/education.
- The growing, general belief amongst scientists that original lab research is an integral component to a top science education.
- The availability of federal money through research grants which could benefit the institution.</p>
<p>If I recall, Wesleyan made this transition earlier than many other institutions have that made a similar transition. I think it was sometime in the 60s when they established their graduate programs in the sciences. My guess is the federal money for fundamental science research post-Sputnik was too much of an enticement to not chase after, especially since at that time, Wesleyan was still quite a bit smaller than Amherst and Williams and had been in danger of shutting down a few times because of finances.</p>
<p>The fact that they chose this root continues to have a huge benefit amongst science students looking for LACs, and from the Wiki we can see that Wesleyan boasts:
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<p>The above is no doubt a result of establishing graduate programs, as small as they may be.</p>
<p>I’m thinking their endowment was small compared to peer schools, they were under financial pressure, and somebody came up with the bright idea of moving into this LAC+grants niche. Something like that.</p>
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<p>not really. by the beginning of the decade the “little three” were roughly the same size (~1,000 u/g each) and, it would be decades before Wesleyan’s science faculty would have the kind of cell lines established, the kind of equipment in place and reputation that would make it possible for them to be self-supporting. </p>
<p>For the first few decades of their existence almost all the seed money came from Wesleyan’s relatively enormous endowment (bolstered, until 1965, by a steady stream of income from “My Weekly Reader” which it published) By the end of the sixties Wesleyan’s endowment was $161 million vs. $70 and $60 million for Amherst and Williams respectively.</p>
<p>In what, in many ways, has parallels in the recent past, Wesleyan literally could not spend money fast enough to satisfy its critics. They also established one of the earliest doctoral programs in ethnomusicology, a university press, and had plans for further, symmetrical doctoral programs in the humanities and social sciences until the great bear market of the 1970s made talk of spending down the endowment redundant.</p>