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Iphigenia and the iPhone
by Dan Edelstein, Inside Higher Ed, August 13, 2009
American educators and policy makers start to worry every time a new report shows how other countries are producing greater numbers of science and engineering majors than the United States, and these days, it’s unusual to hear about a chief academic officer putting the study of the humanities at the forefront of his or her institution, writes Dan Edelstein in an August 13 op-ed in Inside Higher Ed. But are the humanities and liberal arts only good for lofty ideals? Edelstein asks. He suggests that the evidence shows American universities’ traditional focus on a liberal education, including both the sciences and the humanities, is the key to nurturing innovative thinking among students.
Edelstein describes his experiences teaching Chinese students who had never, before his Introduction to the Humanities course at Stanford University, been expected to come up with an original thesis statement and write an essay supporting it. America places a premium on originality, he explains, and while the iPhone is produced in China, it was designed in California. Humanities courses offer at least as much opportunity for innovative thinking as science and technology courses, which often require students to narrowly interpret data and statistics. Humanities courses, on the other hand, “provide students with lessons in innovation from day one.” Crafting an undergraduate-level essay on Euripides’ Iphigenia “requires the same conceptual skill set as does devising a new medical procedure, constructing a different architectural schema, or coming up with a creative business model,” Edelstein writes.
American universities are unique in the world for their traditional insistence that all undergraduates receive a broad, humanistic education—rather than specializing immediately upon arrival. “When we consider the future of American higher education, therefore, we would do well to remember that a long-standing attachment to a liberal arts education has contributed in no small way to its great renown,” Edelstein advises.
Read the entire opinion article online.
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