Connecting Students and Academics Through the Arts

Abstract

It is my belief that the foundation of a college education is the fine arts and the humanities. In the classics, philosophy, history, music and art, to name only a few of the liberal arts, we explore and seek to understand our existence in historic and contemporary terms. Through the arts, we create stories and re-enact dramas; we analyze pictures and paint new ones; we blend voices and sing new notes. The liberal arts educate our minds and our hearts so that we may engage more fully and more completely in relationships, in meaningful work, and in a better quality of life. In recent years, as consumerism has swept across the nation and the purpose of a college education has shifted from “creating a meaningful philosophy of life” to “earning a higher income,” the humanities struggled to show relevance or to have a voice at the table. Undergraduate professional programs of study have begun to dominate curricular offerings and enrollments while stressing employability and economic return on the college investment. Money has flowed into STEM education (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math), while public funding for the arts has declined in many places. Workforce development increasingly supplants the development of the “whole individual,” and general education has been de-emphasized as technical courses of study and “electives” serving the majors play a larger role in general education. Now, I do paint (forgive my pun) with a broad brush. Certainly there are many private liberal arts colleges across the nation that embrace and promote the liberal arts throughout the undergraduate curriculum, but their impact is small when judged by the sheer numbers of students attending the comprehensive and research institutions nationwide. So, I find it particularly heartening to see many leading research universities re-emphasizing the central place of the liberal arts and humanities in a college education with the formation of task forces and the issuance of new (or revised) strategic plans for the arts. For example, Harvard issued the Report of the Task Force on the Arts in 2008; and The University of North Carolina Board of Trustees created Art@Carolina: Explore, innovate, celebrate in 2011; Emory University penned an Arts Blueprint in 2010; and The Arts at Virginia Techwas issued in 2010. Innov High Educ (2012) 37:347–348 DOI 10.1007/s10755-012-9233-0