To defend the liberal arts perhaps they need to be globalized? Take a look at this Yale conference coming up 6-7 June that includes Andrew Delbanco and William Dersiewicz (“Don’t Send Your Kids to the Ivy League”), two insightful observers of higher ed and liberal arts in the U.S.
A collaboration between the National University of Singapore and Yale University, located in Singapore, Yale-NUS College aims to redefine liberal arts and sciences education for a complex, interconnected world.
At a time when the liberal arts are frequently met with skepticism in the United States, there has been strong interest in developing liberal arts programs in both Asia and Europe. This symposium and workshop, funded with grants from the Henry Luce Foundation, Teagle Foundation, and the J Y Pillay Global-Asia Program, will bring together approximately 50 faculty and senior staff from liberal arts colleges and universities around the United States to discuss renewal of college curricula. In particular, we will focus on how liberal arts and sciences programs can offer an international and multidisciplinary foundation for student learning through demanding and cohesive general education courses.
We hope to draw on our experience founding Yale-NUS College to share lessons learned in creating a new liberal arts college in Asia, and to discuss how our experience might prove relevant to curricular innovation in the United States. In addition, having undertaken a review of our Common Curriculum, we will discuss ways in which the College and other liberal arts institutions might improve their general education programs, specifically to incorporate Asian topics, themes, and texts into their curricula.
American faculty members’ understanding of how liberal arts education is being reimagined and reinvented by non-Western educational systems, such as Yale-NUS College, will offer a valuable opportunity for colleges and universities in the United States to re-evaluate their own curricula. As a result, this re-imagining of a global curriculum will support the sustainability of US liberal arts education.
Only Moderately Undecided 