Majoring in the Liberal Arts

 

Last December the New York Times posted its best op-eds of 2023 in “The Morning”. One caught my eye, by Pamela Paul, “How to Get Kids to Hate English” (March 9, 2023). What really rang my bell was her defense of English and history majors, which are losing ground to STEM – training kids for jobs as opposed to educating them. I can’t argue that the job market isn’t different from what it was when I graduated college, nor can I argue that tech jobs are not a critical part of our economy.  But what a dreary, gray, and distrustful world it would be without literature, music, and art, not to mention journalism written by humans (instead of AI), and history to learn from, and live by.

 I remember very little from my less than distinguished undergraduate years; a little psychology, maybe a bit of chemistry, but I do remember being assigned A Farewell to Arms and J.D. Salinger’s For Esme with Love and Squalor. One classroom experience led me to read and collect most of Hemingway’s and Salinger’s works. I have seared into my memory the surprise of Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird, and dozens of other characters in dozens of other books spawned by an early love of reading. I was a lucky kid; we didn’t have TV or social media.

 Who doesn’t remember music from their youth, or the first skeptical time you saw a live symphony perform, or being awestruck at the Met, or standing in front of Picasso’s Guernica in Madrid, or even Rodin’s “The Thinker” at the High in Atlanta? Are systems analysts, important as they are, going to give you those kinds of life experiences? They stick with you, long after you have forgotten calculus and linear programming.          

 Over time we can get all this on our own, but being exposed first will light the fire. Isn’t that what college is about? My granddaughter is set to spend 3 weeks in Rome, between her sophomore and junior years at Emory, with her classmates under the tutelage of a professor of art history studying the art, architecture, and history of this ancient city. Education and memories for a lifetime. Go for it.

 It seems this emphasis on tech training is ignoring the need for not just educating young people, but also threatening graduate and professional programs for which high achieving and hungry liberal arts graduates are eminently qualified. I am sure most of this threat applies to political pressure on state supported public institutions competing for job growth, but it can be existential to smaller private liberal arts colleges. However, Ms. Paul specifically referenced Columbia University, and by definition a university comprises all academic disciplines. I hope we will hear and read many more national voices in opposition to siphoning scarce dollars from a real college education.