Last Sunday, Stanley Fish foretold the end of humanities departments. Today, Inauguration Day, President Barak Obama promised to restore the "rightful" position of science in American society. Apparently American higher education is making a shift toward the useful and measurable. Should aspiring professors of literature, philosophy, and political theory be concerned?

For one, I think there may be some reason to doubt Fish's dire predictions. One example that he cites is the unapologetically business-like attitude of online degree granting institutions, such as the University of Phoenix. He quotes one University of Phoenix founder as saying, "We are not trying to develop value systems or go in for that ‘expand their minds’” nonsense. This example seems extreme. None of the students I have ever met with a modicum of intellectual curiosity wanted to go through a degree-granting program like the one Phoenix offers. Just because one such institution is openly running a business rather than a university, doesn't mean that the much larger, older edifice of American higher education as a whole is effected by the same attitude. Also, recent statistics show a significant rise in the numbers and attendance of small liberal arts and religious colleges in the United States. Many of these colleges and universities are explicitly devoted to restoring the liberal arts tradition.

Secondly, Obama's remark that he wants to restore the (seemingly) depressed (or oppressed) position of Science in America could mean good things for higher education. More students encouraged to enter doctoral programs in physics, chemistry, biology, and mathematics would be a boon when you consider that many students are diverted from these challenging fields by the higher remuneration offered by JDs and MBAs.

Maybe change has come to higher education.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Samantha Clark,

Samantha,

Let me start by saying I respect what ISI stands for, particularly because it is scholarly. I'm intrigued by the opportunity to take short courses online to improve or synthesize my understanding of conservative thinking, and will shortly begin the online study course.

Ironic though, Stanley Fish's comments seem to condemn even ISI's idea of online education...as if we can't be intellectually stimulated in that way, or earn something like a degree, certification or education other than through a liberal arts tradition, doing it the traditional liberal arts way.

But, I do take exception to your comment about "degree-granting" programs. So, I'm going to focus on that for a minute.

I'm pleased to introduce myself as your first "student" with "a modicum of intellectual curiosity" that graduated with an MBA in Technology Management from the University of Phoenix. I provide no further proof of my intellectual curiosity other than the fact that I'm on this website, interested in the subjects at-hand, and talking to you.

I'm going to go on the defense of the University because I felt strongly that something had to be said. I'll start by saying that I'm an SVP at a large financial institution, and have no connections to the university. I've noticed that you are a staff member and very active on (if not in charge of) this discussion forum, so I feel that an underlying attitude has to be corrected or you risk making your site exclusive to folks who, frankly, don't have an education like you, or me.

In my great and refreshing experience with UOP, I discovered that you can learn, either in the classroom or online, through their purposefully designed system. Nothing unlike what ISI is attempting to do. It's a system at UOP by the way, and really nothing more than that. Whether you are learning at Yale, UOP, or online at ISI's new online course, it is a personal *decision* to learn. Learning has less to do with bricks and mortar, and more to do with attitude and desire. Oh, and it has even less to do with what we know or how smart we are...think about it.

We've all had experience with dull and bored minds and it didn't matter if it was at a university with two hundred year old brick buildings, or classrooms in a Hewlett Packard building in Pleasanton, California (where I took my classes).

UOP is different than going to say UC Davis where I got my B.S., BUT IT NEEDS TO BE! I'm not a kid anymore, and I won't tolerate the poor conditions of the University. I spent too many days standing in line waiting to purchase a syllabus, or sitting in a lecture hall on the floor because there were no seats left. I certainly don't have time to help youngsters half my age and experience get through an MBA program!

I wanted a level playing field with professionals who already had great careers, were mostly technical and needed to get an additional edge through an educational system that was highly focused on their situation. It helped that UOP catered to me, and why shouldn't they?

By working in the classroom with teams over a two year period, I grew intellectually and moved into a life changing career as a result of my involvement in that program. Mine was a pursuit, not unlike many who join MBA programs at Columbia or Berkeley. We all want to grow, to become more upwardly mobile, to pursue something new, and to expand intellectually. I feel very accomplished in those goals.

Regardless, ISI is also offering ISI training online because it is possible, convenient, exposed to the masses and not concerned about intellectual exclusivity. It's more about educating as many people as possible because we need it. This is not unlike UOP.

Finally, my degree wasn't given to me through a "degree-granting program", it was earned. I spent two solid years working with a team of great people from all over the Bay Area in California...from folks who controlled satellites for Lockheed, to software developers, to medical professionals. I learned from people who were managers and executives in some of our best financial and industrial institutions. Is there something wrong with that? If so, maybe I should just stop listening to my boss, and the executives above me since they aren't professors, and for the most part they don't have Phd's. Rather, the opposite is true. I should get a business and management perspective, I should learn from these people because of who they are and what they've acheived. In our daily debates, aren't those types of teachers more representative of exactly what we are claiming more people should be doing in the U.S.?

I agree with you that the quoted example apparently from John Sperling, the founder of UOP, is somewhat extreme. I don't recall ever feeling or seeing this attitude while attending, thus I'm somewhat curious to see the actual quote to put it in context, or to validate that the quote is real.

From their Mission and Purposes statements, I've personally witnessed this while attending and believe they still hold true to their core purpose, I quote:
"To facilitate cognitive and affective student learning--knowledge, skills, and values -- and to promote use of that knowledge in the student's work place.
To develop competence in communication, critical thinking, collaboration, and information utilization, together with a commitment to lifelong learning for enhancement of students' opportunities for career success."

The above mission is most likely similar to many mission statements developed by our best liberal arts colleges in the nation.

Thank you for considering this long, slightly off-topic point. I'm sure the last thing you wanted to hear was a rebuff from a potentially over-sensitive UOP graduate.
DLBorges

This message has been edited. Last edited by: dlborges,

DLBorges,

On the contrary, friend, yours is precisely the kind of response that is the most relevant and interesting.

First, I agree with you that genuine learning takes place as the result of a personal decision to pursue truth with a good will. The mere fact that a student is sitting in a brick and mortar building does nothing to ensure that he or she wants to learn, as your experience at UC Davis, and as my own at my small undergraduate college, I’m sure demonstrates. And conversely, the absence of that brick building does not ensure a student’s apathy toward learning either. Whether you sit in ivy-shaded halls or in an industrial park in front of your laptop, the desire to learn is born of a personal decision—one that is unrelated to bricks, or mortar, or cement block—and it is the sine qua non of liberal education, or of any kind of education.

But here we come to the distinguishing point: your description of the benefits of the UOP program does not have to do with a “liberal education” in the sense that Stanley Fish means. Stanley Fish is wondering about the future of the kind of study that is devoted to knowledge for its own sake. This is an ancient understanding of the what the “idea of the university”, as it was expressed by John Henry Newman, represents. Fish specifically mentions humanities departments, indicating the disciplines of philosophy, literature, history, classics, and any combination of those. His first paragraph makes clear that he is referring to “higher education, properly understood . . . [as] distinguished by the absence of a direct and designed relationship between its activities and measurable effects in the world.” Understandably, you would like for your MBA to have a “direct and designed relationship” to the activities of the world! Thus, there is a qualitative and important distinction between the program you enjoyed at UOP and the kind of education Fish is concerned about in his column.

The conditions and methods appropriate for pursuing an MBA program—or a CPA program, or a JD, or an MD—are not under discussion here, or only very indirectly. There is nothing “wrong” with the choice to pursue these degrees. Of course not! There may be arguments regarding the proper methods for pursuing those degrees. You’ve given a persuasive account on behalf of one of those methods, namely online and accelerated programs (Charles Murray has given another one). Unrelated, as you pointed out, are the needs of a young undergraduate pursuing the liberal arts (although even the needs of a young undergraduate—whether she is studying English or economics—includes chairs to sit on during class!)

ISI is devoted to encouraging a lively discussion about the best means for pursuing a liberal arts education. The fall-out of that discussion may well be relevant to other kinds of educational pursuits, such as pursuing a professional degree, or the means of K-12 education, or the role of the family or religion in educational activities. But these other kinds of educational pursuits are less directly in our sights, so to speak. Nonetheless, it is important to all those concerned with the state of higher education to understand the distinctions between each of these kinds of pursuits, and to discuss each of them, with the hope that insights gained about the one will influence positively the pursuits of the others.


You can also read more about the distinctive quality of liberal learning in James Schall’s little book, “A Student's Guide to Liberal Learning,” published by ISI Books. And that, unfortunately, was not a disinterested statement of knowledge!

Education is indeed in a state of flux in the face of technology but, as has been stated, this need not spell disaster for a traditional liberal arts education, if I may cast Fish's "idea of the university" in such terms.

My first exposure to the humanities as a field was in a senior level high school course that focused on the early humanism of the Italian Renaissance. I found the class so enjoyable both intellectually and aesthetically that when I began looking for potential schools to attend after graduation, I determined to focus my search on programs with a humanities/liberal arts/great books approach to learning. Unfortunately, my vocation (I am currently enlisted in the active duty Air Force) precluded me from attending the vast majority of such programs.

Since then, however, I have been blessed with two schools who provide such an education in a form that is accessible to students like myself. The first is Amridge University, a private Christian school who provides an online undergraduate program in liberal studies that includes readings in natural science, philosophy and theology, social studies, and imaginative literature. After graduating from this program last year, I began working toward an MA in Humanities from American Military University. Though AMU is primarily known for its academic programs for public employees, they also provide programs such as Humanities and Classical History (which was a close second for me) for those with more purely academic interests.

Though exclusively online programs do have their shortfalls (such as the lack of direct, personal interaction with professors and fellow students), such programs do offer a means by which students like myself may enter the "great conversation" even at great distances (a strength they share with ISI).

Stanley Fish has confused the causality of the issue. There need not be a causal link between growth of online schools and a decline of liberal arts institutions. In fact, the growth of online schools only underscores the distinction in identity and mission between real liberal arts schools and online schools, underscore the liberal arts mission even more clearly against a contrasting backdrop.

Let us not listen to those who fall for the "paltry pelf of the moment", as Burke said, confusing a momentary trend for the long-term picture. There will continue to be a market for a liberal arts education--people's core values do not change overnight. In fact, many parents who were gypped in whole or in part of a true education by the positivist slant of modern schools realize exactly what happened to them and specifically try to avoid the same happening to their kids. Therefore, they specifically seek out traditionally-oriented liberal arts institutions in backlash.

The growth of the U. of Phoenix and other mass-market "schools" reflects America's decision to aim to educate "everyone" at the college level, something no society has ever been successful at and which causes much grief for those who would be better served by vocational training. Since everyone must "go to college," then the definition of college is forced to expand beyond its true definition as anything and everything that can be learned has to be learned in some sort of "college." Hence UPhoenix.

Let's be real. The true liberal arts education involves a sustained dialogue, not uploading some work over the net and participating in chat boards. A dialogue is difficult if not impossible to pursue over the internet in a serious way over a long period of time, much less if you have never seen the person with whom you are communicating. Real schools will always attract real people.