The essential learning outcomes of a liberal education
are, as noted in the recent report from the National
Leadership Council for Liberal Education and America's
Promise, achieved through engagement with "the
'big questions,' both contemporary and enduring."
Hence, the fourth Principle of Excellence identified
in the LEAP report: "Engage the Big Questions."
That phrase "both contemporary and enduring"
conflates two somewhat distinct categories of questions.
The first are questions derived from far-reaching social
issues or problems--HIV/AIDS, for example, or poverty
or global warming. They are "big" in the sense
that they affect broad sectors of society or even whole
populations, and accordingly, their answers are broadly
consequential. By contrast, the enduring Big Questions
are the fundamental questions of what it means to be
human. They are questions of meaning, value, and purpose,
and they endure because while the questions are universal,
the answers are not.
The two categories do overlap,
of course. Existential questions are posed within a
particular historical moment, and responses to them
are subject to contemporary influence. Similarly, individuals
bring their own values to bear in both framing the contemporary
questions and working with others to find answers to
them.
Engagement with Big Questions of both kinds is
a distinctive feature of a liberal education. As Robert
Connor observes in this issue, "the texts, problems,
and historical and aesthetic experiences that have long
stood at the center of a liberal education speak directly
to such questions and concerns." It is expected
that liberally educated graduates will participate in
the search for answers to contemporary Big Questions,
just as it is expected that they will continue to search
for satisfying answers of their own to the enduring
Big Questions. The moral duty to do both is captured
by another familiar AAC&U phrase: personal and social
responsibility, which describes an essential liberal
education outcome.
Still, when examining the role of
undergraduate education in preparing students to lead
meaningful lives and to act as responsible citizens,
it is useful to separate the contemporary from the enduring.
To that end, this issue of Liberal Education examines
engagement with the enduring Big Questions. Engagement
with contemporary Big Questions--the theme of the 2007
annual meeting, "The Real Test: Liberal Education
and Democracy's Big Questions"--will be taken up
in the summer issue .
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