Liberal education

"From our perspective, liberal education is not some roster of required courses to round out the major, but the totality of our students' education," he said. "It encompasses all four years and embraces not only curricula – breadth requirements and courses in the major – but also dorm life, overseas studies, community-based service, and student experiences in laboratories, on athletic fields, in internships and in student groups – all of the places where our students learn and grow."

--Quoting Prof. James T. Campbell (committee co-chairman)

It's a cliché, but young people are the future of our country. The corollary: Their education is one of society's most critical responsibilities.

Therefore, I've been interested enough to at least skim through the 100-page printed report that Stanford released on Thursday, a report analyzing the future of undergraduate education at that school. The report reviews the history of similar past studies and the results of their implementation, and sets forth guidelines for the future.

Stanford has had its share of curriculum battles in the past. The report notes that fact, and attempts to skirt some of those minefields by identifying abilities, and only to a lesser extent the substantitive knowledge, that it believes all college graduates should possess.

Foremost is the ability to communicate effectively -- writing clearly, reading closely and critically, speaking effectively, and listening attentively to the opinions of others, especially when those opinions challenge the student's own most closely held beliefs.

Other abilities listed are critical thinking, aesthetic and interpretive judgment, formal and quantitative reasoning, ability to think historically, facility with scientific analysis, and a "rich capacity for creative expression," in whatever field the student is working.

Stating these goals is easy; how they might be implemented occupies the bulk of the report. The report acknowledges the apparent tug of war between specialization in a major and the breadth of learning required by a liberal education. The writers feel that, rightly conceived, the tug of war is illusory: each complements and strengthens the other.

Most interesting, from my perspective, is the emphasis that the report gives to education beyond the classroom -- in student residences, on overseas campuses, and through engagement in off-campus learning experiences (internships, field studies, performing arts, and, especially, community service programs).

At Stanford, as at many other residential schools located outside of large cities, 98 percent of the undergraduates live in university housing. Life in dormitories provides strong opportunities -- not always fully realized -- to encourage learning in various ways apart from the formal curriculum. When I was an undergraduate, I developed many of my own lasting interests simply from unstructured interactions with other students in my housing unit. But the report goes beyond these serendipitous opportunities, suggesting introduction of additional resident faculty members to live and dine with the students in their living groups, and greatly increased use of "integrated learning environments" where students with similar academic interests are clustered in the same unit for a year.

Living in dorms, students grapple intimately with the meanings of citizenship, leadership, diversity, respect, tolerance, and community, developing capacities that are not only intellectual but also social and emotional. The goal of residential education is not to “academicize” these experiences, but to create opportunities for students to connect their curricular and residential lives, in ways that enrich both.

Every university does studies of this sort periodically. The goals are never perfectly realized. But it's important that faculty and administrators sit down occasionally and ask "what is it we're hoping to accomplish, and what tools do we have to improve out performance." This report seems well thought out -- both in terms of educational objectives and in the means it suggests for accomplishing those objectives.

The Stanford report is of value not only to students and faculty at that school, but also to us, the general public. Reading it reminds me of the importance of education; of the excitement that the availability of appropriate educational tools helps generate in both students and faculty; and, simply, how much fun, as well as hard work, the pursuit of learning -- structured and not so structured -- can be.

And ... let's face it. Reading this report also makes me wish I could go back and do it all over again -- all the anxieties and uncertainties, the deadlines, the term papers and final exams -- and the living from day to day on excessive levels of caffeine -- notwithstanding.