Session 12: Engage- Liz Coleman

Liberal Arts: An education designed to foster a student's broadest intellectual and deepest ethical potential.

Liberal Arts no longer exists.

Technical skills are celebrated but these are viewed warily:

What kind of a world...
are we making?
should we be making?
can we be making?


Civic mindedness is treated as outside, not the core.


This nation with all its resources seems utterly helpless to stop the fall of all the major problems of society.

How is it that so many

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson

[Note how many people here at TED have quoted good ole TJ... I think I need to re-read everything I ever read of his and kick myself for not reading all of it. Are these books at the TED bookstore? They need to be!]

The Reality:
None as the answers
Everyone has the responsibility.

The new cirriculum- my favorite, Venn diagram (!) to show that all of these things must be seen in combination of each other.
*equity
*education
*the environment
*governance
*the uses of force
*health

History provides a laboratory in which we see the actual and as well as the intended consequences of our actions.

The NEW liberal arts:
rhetoric
design
mediation
improvisation
quantitative reasoning
technology (which merges from these in concert)

"This new wine needs a new bottle."
Freshman Course Schedule becomes A Medieval Fair

The challenge for Bennington is to execute these values she's outlined here.

"We intend to turn the intellectual and imaginative power, passion and boldness of our students, faculty, and stoff on the developing strategies for acting on the most critical challenges of our time."

"We cannot have a viable democracy made up of experts, zealots, politicians and spectators."

"Being overwhelmed is the first step if you are serious about trying to get at things that really matter on a scale that makes a difference." [thank you Anonymous for helping complete that quote]

I'm going to write her an email and request a full transcription now...