Taking every thought captive for obedience to Christ (2 Corinthians 10.5)

Disciplines
Higher Education
The state and future of higher education in America are becoming an item of increasing national interest. The entrenchment of a “politically correct” leftism – not only in humanities departments, but in human resources and other administrative areas – the emergence of new racial and gender tensions, the graying of the professoriate, and renewed skepticism about the value of a college education, have all made post-secondary training a topic of parental, political, and professional concern.

One of the primary areas of contention relates to the content of the curriculum. The conflict is between those who believe that students should be able to earn a degree taking only courses relating to their area of concentration, and those who insist that a broader and more balanced course of studies should be required of all undergraduates.

Dr. Carol Geary Schneider lines up with those who support what she refers to as a “big-picture” curriculum. In an interview with Dan Barrett of The Chronicle of Higher Education, the outgoing president of the Association of American Colleges & Universities explained why she has devoted the last decade of her career to this conviction (“Why a ‘Big-Picture Education’ Has Never Been More Important,” May 12, 2016).

Dr. Schneider argues that a big-picture education “prepares [students] to deal with complexity, and prepares them to take ethical responsibility and civic responsibility for what they’re learning.” Regardless of a student’s major area of studies, a liberal arts education is essential for developing skills in critical thinking, human relations, and individual responsibility. A liberal education includes exposure to a wide range of subjects in the humanities, by means of a varied approach to teaching and learning, all directed toward practical use of the knowledge gained for everyday life situations.

Dr. Schneider says, “We think that one of the most important things for a 21^st-century liberal education is to have clear connections between students’ majors, whatever they are, and that broad learning so that students have the opportunity to rehearse putting their questions, their interests, their concerns” to their chosen field of endeavor. She contends that a liberal arts education helps to continue students’ interest in learning by providing access to information and approaches to learning to which otherwise they would not be exposed.

Dr. Schneider concludes, “We need to make sure that we have broadly educated career and technical people. They need to understand the world they’re part of just as much as anyone else. So we need new designs.”

In general, the idea of a liberal education makes sense, since there is more to life than finding a job and earning a living. But liberal education per se offers no magic formula for helping students to live ethically and responsibly in a manner that, for example, conduces to increased neighbor-love and decreased narcissism. The liberal arts – literature, art, music, history, philosophy, and so forth – are easy prey for ideologues who see in these historic disciplines fodder to feed their own worldview passions. In an educational environment devoted to leftist politics and individual rights, the liberal arts can be harnessed to drive the cart of narcissism, special interests, and radical politics toward a future of increasing ethical irresponsibility and national discord.

At the same time, the liberal arts in the hands of instructors who understand them as gifts of God, given to manifest His beauty, goodness, and truth, and to benefit the community of humankind through a variety of artifacts, institutions, and conventions, will help students to nurture an entirely different view of the world and life.

The larger issue in American higher education is only secondarily related to curriculum. Primarily, as in so many other areas of life in our society, the larger issue is worldview. And the question is whether the existing worldview of materialism, relativism, individualism, and narcissism will continue to serve as the dominant, if not sole, framework for the life preparation of this and future generations of American students.

But in the absence of any strong, compelling, appealing alternative voice – specifically, in the absence of a widespread, articulate, confident, and comprehensive Christian worldview – educators and politicians will keep on looking for ways to move around the deck chairs of American higher education; but unless they change their general course, higher education in America will continue to chug through the ice fields of social dissent, cultural relativism, national discord, narcissistic self-interest, and increasing political activism. And that can’t be a good thing for the common weal, no matter how liberally-educated the next generation may be.

For reflection
1.  What is the local church’s responsibility in developing its members for living a Christian worldview?

2.  Everyone has a worldview, a basic way of looking at the world and making their way in it. What would you describe as the foundational convictions of your worldview?

3.  Should Christians even care if our culture and society are following a course that can only lead to wrecking the ship of state? Explain.

Next steps: What might you do to begin developing an “articulate, confident, and comprehensive” Christian worldview? Talk with some friends and a pastor of church leader about this question.

T. M. Moore

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