The Educated Citizen and Public Health

Project Rationale

AAC&U’s National Leadership Council for Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP) calls on American society to give new priority to a set of educational outcomes that all students need from higher learning:

• Knowledge of human cultures and the natural and physical world
• Intellectual and practical skills
• Individual and social responsibility
• Integrative learning

These outcomes are closely calibrated with the challenges of a complex and volatile world and should be the shared responsibility of both general education curricula and the disciplinary majors, including pre-professional studies.

AAC&U and APTR agree that an understanding of public health issues is a critical component of good citizenship and a prerequisite for taking responsibility for building healthy societies. At its best, the study of public health combines the social sciences, sciences, mathematics, humanities, and the arts, while serving as a vehicle for the development of written and oral communication skills, critical and creative thinking, quantitative and information literacy, and teamwork and problem solving. It incorporates civic knowledge and engagement—both local and global, intercultural competence, and ethical reasoning and action, while forming the foundation for lifelong learning. The study of public health, in other words, is a model for the implementation of a capacious vision of liberal education.

The LEAP National Leadership Council further encourages educators to teach through the curriculum to far-reaching issues—contemporary and enduring—in science and society, cultures and values, global interdependence, the changing economy, and human dignity and freedom. The well-designed curricula, the Council argues, should connect knowledge with choices and action, thereby preparing students for citizenship and work through engaged and guided learning on “real-world” problems. Again, the study of public health is perfectly suited to meet such challenges.