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the future of liberal arts in a fast-forward world
Story by Michael Todd
Photographs by Lindsay Lozon

    Welcome to every parent's nightmare. It's a year after graduation and your under-employed son or daughter is asking their eighty-fifth customer of the day, "Would you like fries with that?" Is this what higher education is all about? ask the critics. Well, that's the cliché -- the unemployable university arts grad who has no real "life skills" aside from being literate and knowing how to think. For fear-mongering politicians intent on universities imparting measurable job skills, that cliché is the reality. But is it?

    At the moment, our culture seems to be divided on whether or not a liberal arts education is important or should be preserved at all. Is its purpose to turn out people who think? Or people with computer skills? Is it for life or for a career? Should it be about teaching "professional" skills or about giving people an education that might make them better professionals? Have we lost sight of the fact that while the humanities might not make you rich, they might add richness to your life?

    In a recent speech to her alma mater, The Globe and Mail education reporter Jennifer Lewington remarked that "For all the hype of the Internet and the knowledge-based economy, there is still no technological fix for learning how to select from competing sources of information or to communicate well...the pursuit of a liberal education should be more attractive than ever because it offers the 'edge' of learning how to learn."

    Vice-President Michael Stevenson (Academic Affairs) says liberal arts doesn't deserve the bad rap it has received in the hands of public opinion. "The whole employment situation is a very complicated problem. To say it's the fault of liberal arts is like blaming the victim. There have been big changes in the economy. There's a demand for positions in the high-tech sector for instance, and a problem of supply. So the public has, for good reasons I think, been concerned over what kind of education is best suited to this situation. Attention has been focused on curricula for the job market...in some ways that's rational and understandable.

    "I think public opinion about the value of liberal arts these days is also disturbing and simplistic. The market's always changing, but the fundamental value of a liberal arts degree hasn't changed. A liberal arts degree remains a good predictor of success, as any thoughtful business person will tell you."

    Statscan data reveal university arts graduates with a BA earned as much as pure-science graduates and more than applied-science graduates two years after graduation. Similarly, arts graduates who went on to complete their master's degree have a greater income than other master's graduates. And a survey conducted by York shows only four per cent of its Faculty of Arts graduates were unemployed two years after graduation.

    "The traditional mission of the liberal arts has been to develop people who can think independently, ask significant questions, research, analyze, weigh ideas, draw logical conclusions, put forth sound arguments and be open to life-long learning," says George Fallis, Dean of York's Faculty of Arts. "These are precisely the skills business and industry wants," he says.

    "Employers and CEOs wax eloquent about looking for employees who are creative thinkers, flexible, able to work in teams and are literate -- all the things that studying the liberal arts supplies," says Deborah Hobson, Vice-President (Enrolment and Student Services). "But when you look at the want ads they ask for something different."

    In a recent Angus Reid poll ("Competitiveness and Training: Ontarians attitudes towards job creation and economic growth"), Ontarians said they believe job training is the responsibility of academia and, to a lesser degree, government. Survey respondents maintained that a technical education was more valuable in the new economy than a university degree. In the survey, education was clearly linked with the concept of competitiveness. Eighty-seven per cent of those polled felt government should "be encouraged to play a greater role in our education system." Asked what would be the most valuable workforce education in 10 years, 35% responded with a college diploma in a technical occupation, 18% with a university degree in science, and only 3% with a university degree in arts.