The Virtuous Cycle - Diversity and liberal arts create a synergy for success
The Virtuous Cycle
Diversity and liberal arts create a synergy for success
By
Gregory P. Crawford is the Vice President and Associate Provost at the University of Notre Dame
From ancient times, the goal of a liberal education was to equip an individual for full participation as a free citizen in society, including an education in the virtues. That has not changed. But in the 21st century, society is changing in significant ways, especially with respect to diversity – within a generation, there will be no majority ethnic group in the United States. In this environment, the liberal arts offer powerful tools for strengthening the community through inclusion while the breadth of backgrounds and perspectives enriches the experience of the liberal arts. As John Stuart Mill said, “In the imperfect state of the human mind, the interest in truth requires a diversity of opinion.” By highlighting the liberal arts, especially as an education in the virtues, the academy can facilitate this synergy so that it extends through a person’s career and life with beneficial impact on the increasingly diverse world around them.
The notion of a liberal education, facing significant challenges in some quarters today as scarce resources are allocated to more career-oriented majors, has evolved to highlight skills such as critical thinking, communication, problem-solving, and knowledge application that are useful for any activity. With a more intentional focus on the virtues, that education also provides habits of moderation, empathy, fairness, courage, open-mindedness, attentiveness, honesty, respect, and other traits that empower an individual to practice effective inclusion, fostering a flourishing diverse society.
Leaders in higher education today who are seeking ways to engage students in diversity can leverage their core and distribution requirements in the liberal arts, where many resources are already present and practiced. Regardless of their major, even business, science, or engineering, students are exposed to these courses through university requirements. These experiences can provide some of the most rich and robust exposure to diversity while providing a vital education in the virtues, and faculty and administrators can boost their effectiveness at instilling inclusion even more.
As Aristotle explained, virtues are habits developed through practice that become characteristic of a person’s actions and responses in pursuit of a good life. They foster moderation because they are the means between extreme expressions of those thoughts and actions. For each virtue, there are two vices – too much and too little of the virtue. Too much empathy, for example, is sentimentality, while too little is indifference. Evaluation of the proper action takes specific context into account – the right amount of food for a professional football player would be excessive for a third-grader. The ability to deliberate on such choices is the virtue of prudence, or practical wisdom, one of four “cardinal” virtues including justice, temperance (moderation), and fortitude.
The language of the virtues provides a natural context for the dialogue of diversity. Although it is compatible with a broad range of religious and moral teachings, it is not identified exclusively with any particular system of thought. Its process as well as its content encourages mutual investigation, understanding, and respect. It focuses on practical, day-to-day choices and actions, resists extremism, and fosters evidence-based deliberation.
Higher education is paying increased attention to diversity and inclusion as the 21st century progresses – just like successful corporations. Employers are looking for people who can engage broadly in a global environment where high-tech firms might invent in the United States, design in India, manufacture in Malaysia, and sell in China. Graduates must be prepared to work across cultures, races, religions, and languages. We know that the global world of the future will look different from the past – once-marginalized people will be included as equal participants in shaping the society where we live, and the multiple perspectives they contribute will create a more fair and humane order. Preparing our students for this reality is a critical part of the university’s role, and we take it seriously. The liberal arts are vital for accomplishing this aim.
The content of a liberal education is sometimes an explicit experience of diversity. Anthropology is an investigation into multiple cultures and peoples. History is the record of individual cultures’ development and the interactions of various societies. Social science is the study of how different groups relate to one another in a larger context. Art and literature present variegated reflections of the world we encounter every day. Even science reveals the interdependence of multiple elements in complex environments. Together, the curriculum requirements and electives make sense as an exploration of diversity in the human and natural worlds.
The process of a liberal education is a practice of diversity as well as virtue. Much of the curriculum is engaged through Socratic dialogue that depends on careful thinking, open-minded questioning, and respect for the opinions of others, an environment that enables faculty and students to challenge each other vigorously in pursuit of greater understanding. In fact, the traits indispensable for successful engagement in the classroom are also indispensable for successful engagement in the world.
Empathy, a virtue that is also a key component of emotional intelligence, seeks to understand the other person’s experience and perspective in a profound way, even if the idea is contrary to your own experience. As Aristotle said, “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” Such openness typically requires courage on the part of the speaker and humility on the part of the listener. Everyone must be committed to practice honesty, respect autonomy, and seek unity – though not necessarily agreement – as the outcome of the engagement. Empathy is a trait that transcends cultures and unifies individuals. Even when their particular experience is different, one can recognize similarities that enable participation in the other’s feelings.
To appreciate the critical importance of virtues and diversity, imagine a university or workplace where people failed to practice empathy, humility, respect, and other community-building traits. That environment would not only become an unpleasant place filled with suspicions and negative relationships – its exclusion of the full range of perspectives from participation at the heart of the operation would constrict the potential for problem-solving success. The value of diversity for insight and innovation in learning and commerce is well-documented.
Just as the virtues can enhance diversity, diversity can enrich the practice of the virtues. Hearing the new perspectives of others can stimulate wonder and curiosity. Developing personal connections to people who hold different ideas can encourage openness and respect for those ideas that might not happen when the ideas are encountered in the abstract. The desire for unity with others in the conversation can inspire patience and perseverance to ensure deep rather than superficial understanding.
The campus environment, both in the classroom and beyond, can become a laboratory for practicing virtues that generate a second-nature mindset of diversity and inclusion through the study of the liberal arts. Beyond any particular body of knowledge that a student might master, this education in the virtues is guaranteed to support a successful career and life as a free, participatory citizen who makes impact for good in an increasingly diverse world. That dimension of education is as vital as subject-matter mastery for success in the modern world and workplace. As technology accelerates and specific skills grow obsolete or evolve, employers are looking for people with the intangible qualities that empower them to succeed in changing circumstances and challenging environments where people are diverse, where ideas are diverse, and where change is the norm. Virtuous individuals formed by a liberal arts education that engages diversity will be highly prized members of any organization or team.
Gregory P. Crawford is the Vice President and Associate Provost at the University of Notre Dame, former Dean of the College of Science (2008-2015) and former Dean of Engineering at Brown University (2006-2008). As a leader at two institutions with a strong focus on the liberal arts, his pedagogy interests include entrepreneurship and the role of the liberal arts on a science and engineering education.