With the exception of perhaps Bioethics majors, our school by and large is arguably an institution not adequately priming young adults in accordance to the needs of today's labor market. The supply of those who have specialized liberal arts educations far outweighs the demand for the liberal arts-oriented people in the labor market.
In particular, the recession has caused the demand for such creative and professorial permutations of liberal arts occupations to nearly disappear due to a reduction or reprioritization in institutional funding; the likes of specialist literature professors have largely been deemed peripheral and nonessential. I would perhaps argue that there might not be a problem with this—there is a multitude of contemporary majors in American colleges that don't really have any practical application to a professional career like Comparative Literature (a slightly more specific English degree for people who feel that the name "English" is not highfalutin' enough) or Art History (sometimes known as the "I like being creative, but I really do not know what I want to do with my life" degree).
Also, as a liberal arts institution, our school is sorely lacking in the cultivation of well-rounded individuals. In a recent class specifically designed for upperclassmen, I observed a student profess to not know the difference the Protestant and Catholic churches—a difference that has had a very large effect on the past 600 years of history that ostensibly should have been beaten into minds during the countless history classes one takes through high school. Somehow, bafflingly, there are no required history classes of any permutation to graduate at AJU. Sure, we are a school of rather limited resources, but it is decisions like this that make it seem like AJU is largely engendering a sense of general naiveté to miss the proverbial forest for the trees. There does not seem to be a legitimate reason why all students aren't required to take the somewhat equivalent classes in our curriculum—like Introduction to Political Science or American Government—to ensure students have somewhat of a working understanding of the various forces that govern and play a role in our society.
I do sometimes feel like I experienced a broader array of views, perspectives, and knowledge in the curriculum at community college than I have at AJU. It is perhaps a bit alarming that I feel grateful that I attended community college (an experience often seen as far less academic rigorous than the traditional university) for my first two years instead of attending this school for my entire college career. AJU often feels like an ersatz college, a pseudo school.
Even though the ostensible liberal arts education may very well leave a person with an amount of marketable skill that is disproportionate to the debt they hold, it is still crucial that a person becomes intellectually well-rounded during their collegiate experience. Aside from a particular major, a college education should be a little bit like an academic buffet with someone sampling experiences from a range of different fields—history, biology, political science, geography, english, art, etc. We need to make sure that our increasingly expensive academic institutions provide a skills parity in varied general professional aptitudes. However, we should push out students to things that are more relevant to employers—engineering, computer-related professions and such.
2 comments:
The very example you bring up--students not understanding the Catholicism/Protestantism divide was a major topic of discussion at the last AJU Academic Steering Committee meeting. I think we've come up with some ways to work around issues of that sort, like having day one diagnostic tests in classes that assume some background knowledge, just to make sure everyone's on the same page.
I have to quibble with you though: I don't think that a required course in introductory Political Science or American Government will do any good at all. We all have had those required classes, in middle school, in high school, and some never learned or didn't retain that information. Why would they retain it this time around, especially if it's a subject they're forced into?
I think as long as Google and Wikipedia exist, areas like history won't need to be super committed to memory. Those narratives are accessible, and when things are that easy to get, there's no need to memorize it with the kind of depth one would need to summarize the Protestant Reformation in front of a Dr. Glazer class. That's a whole lot of depth.
Hannah, I agree with you that another required course could do more harm than good, but maybe having an outside of class opportunity for students to get the 411 on what they missed, were mis-taught (or failed to pay attention to). Maybe like a student club or a seminar or something?
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