Carnegie Reporter, Vol. 1, No. 1 | Liberal Arts for a New Millenium, page 3 (low bandwidth)

As part of its overall program strategy in the area of liberal learning, Carnegie Corporation has awarded the first of a series of grants aimed at helping to reframe liberal learning so that it meets the needs of the 21st century. In April of this year the following grants were announced:

• Association of American Colleges and Universities in Washington, DC, $1,000,000 over two years to support the development, dissemination and institutionalization of practices to strengthen liberal arts education. In the 1990s, colleges and universities began to experiment with new approaches to liberal arts education designed to enhance students’ capacity for engaging in rigorous intellectual work. These approaches are not yet part of the practice of most college faculty and so do not reach the majority of undergraduates. With assistance from this grant, the American Association of Colleges and Universities is working with colleges and universities chosen for their progress in institution-wide reform of liberal learning to clarify the goals of liberal education and develop, disseminate and help institutionalize curricular models and pedagogy that further these goals.

• Woodrow Wilson National Fellow-ship Foundation in Princeton, NJ, $988,800 over three years to support a new program, the National Council on Education and the Disciplines. The Council’s aim is to strengthen liberal arts education by making the liberal arts disciplines more integral to the expectations, curricula and achievement standards of the last two years of high school and the first two years of undergraduate education. The Council has identified core literacies gained through the major disciplines—quantitative, scientific, historical and artistic—and is establishing four teams of scholars to design professional development strategies and an educational infrastructure for grades 11-14 that incorporates the importance of these literacies. This grant supports activities of the project related to historical literacy. The designs will be implemented through conferences, symposia and publications.

• American Council on Education in Washington, DC, $275,000 for 18 months to support the development of models for comprehensive internationalization of undergraduate education. The world-shrinking impact of technology, the globalization of markets and the complexity of post-Cold War international politics make knowledge of the world and the ability to function effectively in other cultures and societies essential for educated Americans. While many colleges and universities have begun to respond to the need to educate their students for participation in a global society, most have not yet shifted the international agenda to the core of their mission. With this grant, the American Council on Education, as part of a major initiative on the internationalization of the undergraduate experience, is analyzing the policies and practices of eight institutions regarded as leaders in this area.

Donald Stewart, former Senior Program Officer and Special Advisor to the President of Carnegie Corporation and now President and Chief Executive Officer of the Chicago Community Trust, has these comments about the Corporation’s efforts to help strengthen the liberal arts: “With this grant program, the Corporation is saying, ‘Let’s think about broadening the number of students that can benefit from liberal learning.’ That would include both the traditional student, age 18-21, but also the adult student. The world today requires more thinking people,” he adds. “There’s been a great deal of early specialization, and we would hope to dilute some of that. Too often, parents early on are encouraging kids to determine the career for which they are preparing rather than taking good solid academic courses—solid pre-college courses in sciences and humanities—so that they are ready to go into a general education in college rather than specializing. Too many students are career-oriented too soon.”

Crisis in Teacher Education

Before there can be effective liberal learning, there must be creative, educated teachers who can bring learning alive. But communities across the country are experiencing a shortage of qualified teachers which is only expected to grow as the teaching staff ages and student enrollment climbs. For example, in 1999, New York City hired more than 5,000 uncertified teachers. In the 1998-1999 school year, only 15,000 new teachers graduated from schools in Texas, although 44,000 new teachers were needed in the state. A survey of Texas teachers indicated that, compared to twenty years ago, teachers have less experience, with only 30 percent earning master’s degrees (compared to 41 percent in 1980). The study also reported that 43 percent of the teacher respondents are “seriously considering leaving the profession.”

Because teachers are so crucially involved in transmitting knowledge from one generation to another, Carnegie Corporation is committed to helping to improve teacher quality. The Corporation also seeks to educate the public to recognize that well-qualified teachers can be national treasures, people who can touch our lives, and inspire us to learn, to think and to expand our horizons. As Henry Adams observed, “A teacher affects eternity.”

Providing intellectual stimulation for teachers-in-training is key to encouraging them to infuse their lessons with stimulating concepts and to teach a culturally and racially diverse student population. Yet cross-pollination between schools of education and other schools within colleges and universities is virtually nonexistent, and many teachers do not hold degrees in the subjects they teach. Not only are more teachers needed, but the students planning to teach need to be better prepared for their profession.

Recognizing this need, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) has reversed its long-standing position against standardized tests for teachers. In May, the Internet edition of The Dallas Morning News reported that, “The union suggests that a private organization like the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards administer a national test for teachers. Teachers could then resemble doctors and lawyers, whose professional standards are set by medical societies or state bars.” The AFT proposal would mandate that new teachers have a major in the subject they plan to teach; the proposal also backed a two-tier national test schedule that would require prospective teachers to demonstrate a college-level knowledge of several subjects.

Exposing administrators as well as teachers to liberal learning hopefully will benefit all members of the education community. With this in mind, New York City’s schools chancellor, Harold O. Levy, has begun to provide liberal learning for administrators. Levy organized lectures, sent poetry to board members, and arranged for Isaac Stern to give group violin lessons to superintendents. These liberal learning experiences were an effort to bring board members, school officials and students into what Levy described as “the secret society that is New York City’s intellectual culture.” Although most board members looked favorably on Levy’s attempts to provide them with enriching experiences, one member expressed negative views, saying that she had not received the poems. “Probably if I had gotten them I would have thrown them out,” she is reported to have said. “I’m not a poetry kind of person. I like serial killer novels.”

Next page: A New Paradigm

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