Liberal arts college

Gettysburg College, Pennsylvania

Liberal arts colleges are post-secondary educational institutions which focus on a Liberal Arts curriculum, generally in undergraduate studies. Although the genesis for what is known today as the liberal arts college began in Europe, the term is commonly associated with the United States, which has the largest concentration of Liberal arts schools, although such institutions can be found in countries all over the world as well.

Overview

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The Yurt is home to Hampshire College's student radio station

In America, the designation of Liberal Arts College is given to schools that focuses on giving its undergraduate students a multi-facceted education, requiring study of subjects that fall into the categories of humanities, social and physical sciences. The purpose of this kind of education is to develop a well rounded student, who has the intelluctual capacity to understand and utilize many different areas of intellectual thought and application. However, most liberal arts colleges allow, and some insist, that in addition to general studies, most students should also declare a major of study, one area in particular that the student can study more in-depth and focus upon. For example, a liberal arts student who decides to major in Biology must still take foundation courses in other physical and social sciences, as well as humanities, but will likely progress upon a tiered system of more in-depth study to bring their understanding and experience in the field of biology to a higher level than any other part of the liberal arts curriculum. Majors are offered so that students are properly prepared to either enter the workforce with experience in a particular area or have completed the necessary coursework to continue their education in a more focused discipline. Still, the liberal arts education model is looked upon as not just producing well-rounded students, but also helps create citizens who are able to interact and contribute to a multifaceted and complex society.

Most universities and colleges in America have liberal arts curriculums. Some schools, like Community Colleges have both vocational and liberal arts programs. However, the designation of Liberal Arts College comes from the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, which classifies 228 schools in America as liberal arts schools. They are known for being residential and for having smaller enrollment, class size, and teacher-student ratios than universities. These colleges also encourage a high level of teacher-student interaction at the center of which are classes taught by full-time faculty rather than graduate student TAs (who teach some of the classes at Research I and other universities). Most of the schools with this designation are private institutions, and tend to cost significantly more than state or public schools.

History

In the history of education, the seven liberal arts comprised two groups of studies: the trivium and the quadrivium. Studies in the trivium involved grammar, dialectic (logic), and rhetoric; and studies in the quadrivium involved arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy. These liberal arts made up the core curriculum of the medieval universities. The term liberal in liberal arts is from the Latin word liberalis, meaning "appropriate for free men" (social and political elites), and they were contrasted with the servile arts. The liberal arts thus initially represented the kinds of skills and general knowledge needed by the elite echelon of society, whereas the servile arts represented specialized tradesman skills and knowledge needed by persons who were employed by the elite.

Liberal Arts curricula in Europe started to broaden during the age of the Renaissance, when the most famous and celebrated of the day, such as Leonardo Da Vinci, chose not to focus entirely upon one course of study or work, but to consistently cross discipline lines and study a variety of pursuits.. This tradition lived on in European educational institutions for some time, if not as liberally applied as in the time of the Renaissance. However, during the Industrial Revolution, when technology was pushing towards the workforce with a specific set of skills, emphasis was once again placed upon educating the masses in a way that helped economic progress, particularly in regards to engineering and other technology-based fields. In America however, the "Yale Report of 1828" was produced in reaction to demands from society for education to start preparing students for the changing times. The Yale committee which put the report together concluded that a liberal arts curriculum, in which students were prepared for many different aspects of life, was more beneficial to other types, and thus Yale became one of the first schools to adopt a liberal arts program, which was then mirrored by other schools in the U.S. However, it should be noted that at this early stage, liberal art schools were increasingly selective and expensive, so the vast majority of Americans did not benefit from this type of education. In fact, since its initial inception, liberal arts colleges in the U.S. have had a somewhat back and forth relationship with society. During the latter half of the twentieth century, the rise in vocational, professional and community colleges, along with research institutions, decreased the overall enrollment in liberal arts schools. True to the cyclical cycle, during the beginning of the twenty-first century, liberal arts schools were once again becoming more popular, which could be seen as a tendency in American society to have a dualistic workforce of both vocationally trained and liberal arts educated students.

Agnes Scott College

Organization

Most Liberal Arts Colleges are small, privately run institutions. Often times the schools recieve little to no funding from the public sources, but are financed through private endowments and the costs students and their families must pay in order to attend. While there is no set standard for private college administration, most schools have a President, Provost, Dean or Chancellor who oversees the entire day-to-day operation and management of the school. In addition, most schools have a Board of Govenors or Trustees, to whom the President or Dean must report to. These schools are bound by little government mandates and are therefore allowed to develop and impliment the curriculum and organization of their choosing, however must schools follow suggested guidelines so as to be certified by particular organizations that benefit the school and its image. One of the most important is the guidelines set by the United States Department of Education, which only grants participation into financial aid programs for schools that follow the criteria it sets forth.

Non-government Consortia groups in the U.S. for liberal arts schools include the Annapolis Group, Oberlin Group, Women's College Coalition, and the Consortium of Liberal Arts Colleges. The Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges is a consortium of public liberal arts colleges. A number of liberal arts colleges are involved in Project Pericles or the Eco League.

Bryn Mawr College

Well-known consortia in the Eastern United States include the Little Ivies, Little Three, and the Seven Sisters Colleges. Four Eastern colleges, along with the University of Massachusetts Amherst, are also part of the Five Colleges Consortium in Western Massachusetts and three Eastern colleges comprise the Tri-College Consortium.

Similar consortia include the Claremont College Consortium in Southern California and the Associated Colleges of the Midwest in the Midwestern United States. Additional midwestern groups include the Five Colleges of Ohio, Associated Colleges of the Twin Cities, and the Great Lakes Colleges Association. Groups in the Southern United States include the Associated Colleges of the South, and the Seven Sisters of the South.

Most liberal arts schools have high academic standards for admission and look for students with well-rounded secondary educational experience so as to gage how well they will do in a liberal arts program. Most often admissions requirements include letters of recommendation, an essay, specific SAT or ACT scores, specific high school GPAs and sometimes an interview. While they do strive for the best possible students, most liberal arts schools today are recognizing that the socio-economic inequalities in America can sometimes hamper a students potential. Some liberal arts colleges now have programs designed for students who do not meet the normal admissions requirements but can demonstrate the potential to benefit from attending their institution and therefore are granted admission. Most often, scholarships and grants are set aside for these students as the ability to pay for college is one of the largest barriers for students on the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum.

SAT optional movement

Bates College

A number of liberal arts colleges have either joined, or have been important influences on, the SAT optional movement in the United States.

Bates College

In 1984, Bates College in Lewiston, Maine instituted an SAT optional program, which was one of the first in the United States. This was followed up in 1990, when the Bates faculty voted to make all tests optional in the college's admissions process. In October 2004, Bates published a study regarding the testing optional policy to the National Association for College Admission Counseling. Following two decades without required testing, the college found that the difference in graduation rates between submitters and non-submitters was 0.1%, that Bates' applicant pool had doubled since the policy was instated with approximately 1/3 of applicants not submitting scores, non-submitting students averaged only 0.05 points lower on their collegiate Grade Point Average, and applications from minority students raised dramatically.

The Bates study prompted a movement among small liberal arts colleges to make the SAT optional for admission to college in the early 2000s. Indeed, according to a 31 August, 2006 article in the New York Times, "It is still far too early to sound the death knell, but for many small liberal arts colleges, the SAT may have outlived its usefulness."

Sarah Lawrence College

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Sarah Lawrence College

Sarah Lawrence College dropped its SAT test score submission requirement for its undergraduate applicants in 2003, thus joining the SAT optional movement for undergraduate admission. The former president of Sarah Lawrence, Dr. Michele Tolela Myers, described the rationale for this decision in an article for The Washington Post on 11 March, 2007, saying, "We are a writing-intensive school, and the information produced by SAT scores added little to our ability to predict how a student would do at our college; it did, however, do much to bias admission in favor of those who could afford expensive coaching sessions.

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College of the Holy Cross

At present, Sarah Lawrence is the only American college that completely disregards SAT scores in its admission process. As a result of this policy, in the same Washington Post article, Dr. Myers stated that she was informed by the U.S. News and World Report that if no SAT scores were submitted, U.S. News would "make up a number" to use in its magazines. She further argues that if SLC were to decide to stop sending all data to U.S. News and World Report, that their ranking would be artificially decreased. U.S. News and World Report issued a response to this article on 12 March 2007 that stated that the evaluation of Sarah Lawrence is under review.

Additional colleges and FairTest

Additional SAT optional liberal arts colleges include Bard College, Bennington College, Bowdoin College, College of the Holy Cross, Connecticut College, Denison University, Dickinson College, Drew University,Founders College, Franklin & Marshall College, Goucher College, Gustavus Adolphus College, Hampshire College, Hamilton College, Knox College, Lake Forest College, Mount Holyoke College, Pitzer College, Smith College, [1] St. Lawrence University, and Wheaton College (Massachusetts).

The full list of SAT optional schools is given by Fairtest, an American educational organization that "advances quality education and equal opportunity by promoting fair, open, valid and educationally beneficial evaluations of students, teachers and schools. FairTest also works to end the misuses and flaws of testing practices that impede those goals."

Beyond the U.S.

Institutions outside the United States that have been inspired by U.S. liberal-arts colleges include International Christian University, which was established after World War II as the first American-style college in Japan, the European College of Liberal Arts in Germany, in the Netherlands three liberal arts colleges have been founded over the last decade, and Ashesi University in Ghana. This category of higher education does not exist in the United Kingdom, and the term "liberal arts" is very little used in any contemporary context in the UK.

While the concept is rarely expressed in Australia, it is presently becoming more influential in Melbourne. In that city, Victoria University now offers a two year "Diploma of Liberal Arts." Additionally, the University of Melbourne is becoming a US style graduate school, offering generalist undergraduate degrees similar to a liberal arts degree in the US

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Howard Greene and Mathew W. Greene (2000). Greenes' Guides to Educational Planning: The Hidden Ivies: Thirty Colleges of Excellence. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-095362-4. 
• Harriman, Philip. "Antecedents of the Liberal Arts College." The Journal of Higher Education. Vol. 6, No. 2 (1935): 63-71.
• Koblik, Steven and Stephen Richards Graubard. Distinctively American: The Residential Liberal Arts Colleges, 2000.
• Pfnister, Allen O. "The Role of the Liberal Arts College." The Journal of Higher Education. Vol. 55, No. 2 (March/April 1984): 145-170.
• Pope, Loren. Colleges That Change Lives. New York: Penguin, 2006.
• Reeves, Floyd W. "The Liberal-Arts College." The Journal of Higher Education. Vol. 1, No. 7 (1930): 373-380.
• Seidel, George. "Saving the Small College." The Journal of Higher Education. Vol. 39, No. 6 (1968): 339-342.
• Compiled and Edited by the Staff of the Yale Daily News (2007). The Insider's Guide to the Colleges, 2008 (34th edition). New York: St. Martin's Griffin. ISBN-13: 978-0-312-36689-6. 

• Harriman, Philip. "Antecedents of the Liberal Arts College." The Journal of Higher Education. Vol. 6, No. 2 (1935): 63-71.
• Pfnister, Allen O. "The Role of the Liberal Arts College." The Journal of Higher Education. Vol. 55, No. 2 (March/April 1984): 145-170.
• Reeves, Floyd W. "The Liberal-Arts College." The Journal of Higher Education. Vol. 1, No. 7 (1930): 373-380.
• Seidel, George. "Saving the Small College." The Journal of Higher Education. Vol. 39, No. 6 (1968): 339-342.

External links

All links Retrieved June 10, 2008:

• Alphabetical listing of SAT optional schools; Listing of SAT optional schools by State.
• How To Choose a College That's Right For You - NPR
• Teens, parents should avoid College Selection Hysteria - The Capital
• The right college the right fit: is the perfect college out there waiting for you? Absolutely! But you need to do your research. Get introspective, check your facts, then go out and find it
• A Descriptive Analysis of the Community College Liberal Arts Curriculum
• Academic Commons
• CatholiCity: Catholic Encyclopedia
• Liberal Arts at the Community College
• Philosophy of Liberal Education
• The Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts

Seven Sister Colleges

Barnard • Bryn Mawr • Mount Holyoke • Radcliffe (merged with Harvard) • Smith • Vassar (coeducational) • Wellesley

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