Proud to Report: The Liberal Arts and Career Training Are Not Antithetic to Each Other

A recent piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education (a part of a book by Gary Gutting), presents no shortage of avenues for criticism.  https://chronicle.com/article/Why-College-Is-Not-a-Commodity/233011/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en.  

But, the argument that strikes me as most problematic is one of the  piece's main points: the liberal arts are essential to America's future (and our faculty are primed for this) and "instrumental knowledge" is a needed too but separate enterprise. We have, as the title suggests, commodified the liberal arts.  I could not disagree more but first, let me be very clear as to what I am NOT saying.

I am not saying all high school graduates need to go to a traditional liberal arts college. (Query: do we even know what that is?)  I am not saying that high schools are doing an excellent job with career preparation.  I am not observing that post-secondary education is performing optimally at present but it should be pursued if it is of high quality.  I am not observing that we presently integrate the liberal arts and instrumental learning effectively.

Here is what I am saying.  For starters, the debate over the true meaning of the liberal arts is not new.  There remain those who see the liberal arts as distinct from and unrelated to career training. The motto is something like: learn for learning's sake. I am reading the subtext: it is as if "liberal arts" are for the true intellectuals/thought leaders -- the "elite."  Career training is for the rest of us -- the non-elites.  (Gutting notes an exception for the "learned" professions -- law, medicine and engineering.)  In short, the argument goes, careers = commodification and professors in the academy can't teach about careers.

I beg to differ.  

In terms of showing the falsity of the argument Gutting is making, let me focus on two particular professions -- nursing and policing.  I want to be clear: this is not the only argument that can be made; for some, it may not be the most persuasive one.  But, for me, the separation between liberal and instrumental knowledge throws us back to the years in which the white elite went to the liberal arts colleges (mostly men), and minorities and women either did not pursue post-secondary education or pursued careers in fields that did not have high social status.  I assume most folks that that past is unwise.

Consider nursing and policing as but two examples of why we want these individuals to have a liberal arts education in addition to instrumental learning. Indeed, nursing has been going to the BS as the lowest level of degree attainment and police officers in many locations need post-secondary education other than a police academy. Why you ask?  Why are these professionals actually seeking the liberal arts core as part and parcel of their "knowledge"?

Here's one answer: do you want a nurse who cannot think deeply and well, not just about mechanics and technology of nursing but about questions of living and dying and pain and quality of life, among other issues?  Whom would you prefer as a nurse, the one who can think globally and wisely or the one who is a technocrat? By the by, there are major quality universities with nursing programs that recognize this and CCNE, the leading accreditor, sees the value too.  They only accredit BS and above!  

And as to police officers, might psychology and sociology and literature expand their views of human nature and human experience? Might reading great literature about crime be useful?  Who would you like arresting your son or daughter: the police officer who can process information, who can assess a situation, who can reflect well on human dignity or the one who can shoot well?

Gutting repeats an oft-articulated but false dichotomy. Dangerous too.  There is plenty of room for quality career education and training within the liberal arts tradition.  Yes. professors may well need to adjust and perhaps even work before entering the academy.  Indeed, making the liberal arts "applicable" to real life seems like a critically important enterprise.  

And here's what aggravating: we do not need two (or more) tiers of education and two tiers (or more) of occupations.  With Gutting's argument, nurses and police officers do not need an elite college; these are professions "for others."  

I guess we are not as far along as I thought in terms of eliminating stratification. I admit, this article (and perhaps the whole book which I have not read) demonstrate that we have miles yet to go.