Putting Liberal Education on the Radar Screen

by Carol Geary Schneider and Debra Humphreys, in the Chronicle of Higher Education (September 23, 2005)

In an opinion piece recently published in the Chronicle of Higher Education, AAC&U President Carol Geary Schneider and AAC&U Vice President for Communications and Public Affairs Debra Humphreys argue that public discourse about higher education needs to include more discussion of "the kinds of learning today's college graduates need." Increasingly, they say, employers and civic leaders are calling for graduates who have the practical and intellectual skills developed through a liberal education. Yet many parents and students are unaware of this emerging consensus about learning outcomes. The public is also largely unaware of the innovative strategies--learning communities, cocurricular programs, and undergraduate research, for example--that colleges are now using to promote key liberal education outcomes.

AAC&U is currently working to raise the public profile of liberal education through a decade-long campaign, Liberal Education and America's Promise: Excellence for Everyone as a Nation Goes to College (LEAP). As part of this campaign, AAC&U recently conducted focus groups of college-bound students and college juniors and seniors. These focus groups, Schneider and Humphreys report, have shown that high school students are "uninformed about the college curriculum and uncertain about its demands." And when students in the focus groups were asked to rank a list of college outcomes according to their importance, the students identified as least important liberal education outcomes like values and ethics, appreciation of cultural diversity, global awareness, and civic responsibility.

"The lack of understanding among students--and their parents--about what a liberal education is matters profoundly," Schneider and Humphreys conclude. That, they say, "is what we need to be talking about--and not just among ourselves."

To read this article, visit the Chronicle of Higher Education online (subscribers only). More information about the LEAP campaign are available on AAC&U's Web site.