What are the liberal arts, anyway?

In recent years, Governors and other elected officials have criticized colleges and universities for advocating the liberal arts and sciences as basic to underg education. Instead, they have promoted job preparation, questioning the value of study in the humanities and social sciences. It is striking that some of these same politicians graduated from prestigious institutions known for their liberal arts orientation.

Many futurists argue that a liberal arts education is the best preparation for work, citizenship, and family life.?They remind us that training is about answers - - how to - - and that liberal education is about questions and imagination.?In ancient times, the liberal arts were known as the seven useful arts, including rhetoric, logic, and quantitative reasoning, i.e., the arts of a free person.

?So, what is a “liberal” education??Is it a political leaning??Or is it an approach to life’s questions and professional challenges that continuously leads to new questions and understanding??I think of the liberal arts (and sciences) as liberating - - freeing us from the provincial origins of time, place, and culture.

I explore these questions in the op-ed found here: https://theisland360.com/opinions-100/my-turn-what-are-liberal-arts-anyway/

Thank you, Bob