Defending the Liberal Arts

LITTLE ROCK — Holiday visits back home to Little Rock almost always turn up an old acquaintance or two. Usually the unexpected encounters are in person, but on my most recent Christmas visit, it was a Arkansas Democrat-Gazette editorial on the suspension of the German program at UALR that reunited me with Matthew Arnold, the 19th Century British poet and education critic. As an academic administrator, I too lament the decision to suspend the German major at UALR. And while I don’t know the specifics about this particular decision, I feel safe in saying that those responsible for making it lament it as well—because I know them personally.

What struck me as odd was the way in which this particular decision was used in the editorial to demonize higher education as the “neon lamp of learning.” Do we really believe education administrators find perverse pleasure in dismantling their chosen profession? I’m surprised the de-emphasis of the study of German at UALR didn’t prompt a more thoughtful exploration of the changing nature of higher education in this country.

For example, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that much has changed since 1869, when Arnold first published Culture and Anarchy. In the 19th Century, those who pursued higher education were almost always men of wealth, who didn’t have to worry about finding a career path in a rapidly changing world. In other words, they were men who could afford to fill their leisure time reading the “best which has been thought and said.”

Times have thankfully changed. Social Darwinism has given way to more educational opportunities for a broader cross-section of our society. The role of higher education has expanded to include substantially more than just the “old-fashioned” education for which the editorial writer so passionately pines. It now meets the needs of those wishing for a better life and a community that desperately needs them to do so.

But why focus on the changes that have taken place over the past two centuries? Consider how the economic collapse in 2006 changed the higher education landscape. Justin Pope in a recent New York Times article reported on UCLA’s national survey of college first-year’s that found over 85 percent of the respondents view job preparation as the top reason for going to college. These are kids who aren’t worried about their leisure time; they’re worried about how they’re going to make a living. State legislatures, like Arkansas’, are worried, too. They have restructured funding formulas, favoring those institutions that graduate more students in economically valuable majors.

It’s not just public institutions that are feeling the stress. I spent 28 years of my career at UALR and the Clinton School of Public Service, and now work at Centenary College, the oldest liberal arts college west of the Mississippi, with an academic tradition that runs as fine and deep as any in the country. Since 2006, my college has been faced with an economic reality that has forced us to rethink our curriculum and the students’ educational experiences. In our case, we are focusing more strongly on the arts and sciences. For other private colleges, as Mr. Pope noted in his article, the strategy has been to expand to more popular pre-professional programs and on-campus amenities.

Different schools make different choices about how to appeal to a radically shifting market. But UALR, like every other bona fide college and university in this country, has curriculum requirements that are mandated by its faculty, the state legislature and/or regional accrediting bodies. Those requirements vigorously protect the liberal arts foundation for our students, but they can’t guarantee the viability of an individual program in an environment that demands economic accountability.

Higher education is under enormous stress across this nation. Surely, some of that stress has been caused by institutional mismanagement and poor curricular decisions. Some of it, particularly in the public sector, has been generated by legislatures that impose specific constraints on how resources are allocated, and tend to frame education as a destination rather than a journey. Instead of focusing on this one decision about a single program, why not focus on the ways in which higher education is responding to the challenge?

UALR maintains strong programs in French and Spanish, and an outstanding academic program that prepares students to teach English as a second language in Central Arkansas Schools. Dr. Don Bobbitt, president of the UA System, is vigorously promoting the use of higher-tech distance learning options that, among other things, could ultimately expand the opportunity for students across the state to study all varieties of foreign languages. And those high school students in Central Arkansas who are passionate about studying German have Hendrix College, one of the premier liberal arts colleges in the country, right up the road.

Finally, it’s disappointing that the editorial called out someone who for more than 20 years was a valued colleague of mine at UALR. Through Dr. Deborah Baldwin’s leadership as dean of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, tens of thousands of students in Central Arkansas have been exposed to the performing arts, literature from around the world and, yes, foreign languages. Given all of the column inches in this newspaper devoted to both real and alleged higher education financial mismanagement in this state, I would think the Democrat-Gazette would be praising an administrator who responded to a challenging legislative bottom-line imperative by making the difficult decision to manage a finite set of resources in such a way that the maximum number of students benefit. And did it in a way that probably provided those currently teaching German at UALR the most career flexibility moving forward.

Still, I’m grateful you invoked the poet Matthew Arnold. As I recall, he also claimed “journalism is literature in a hurry.” Maybe the editorial staff at the Democrat-Gazette should slow down just a bit and take a closer look. If there is a war on the liberal arts, it’s likely being best defended by those you are so quick to criticize.

Dr. Mike Hemphill is a former faculty member and department chair at UALR, and former chief academic officer of the Clinton School of Public Service. He has a doctorate in speech communication and currently serves as the Provost and Dean of the College at Centenary College of Louisiana.