Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters - Hardcover

Roth, Michael S.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300175515 ISBN 13: 9780300175516

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2014

Synopsis

An eloquent defense of liberal education, seen against the backdrop of its contested history in America

Contentious debates over the benefits—or drawbacks—of a liberal education are as old as America itself. From Benjamin Franklin to the Internet pundits, critics of higher education have attacked its irrelevance and elitism—often calling for more vocational instruction. Thomas Jefferson, by contrast, believed that nurturing a student’s capacity for lifelong learning was useful for science and commerce while also being essential for democracy. In this provocative contribution to the disputes, university president Michael S. Roth focuses on important moments and seminal thinkers in America’s long-running argument over vocational vs. liberal education.
 
Conflicting streams of thought flow through American intellectual history: W. E. B. DuBois’s humanistic principles of pedagogy for newly emancipated slaves developed in opposition to Booker T. Washington’s educational utilitarianism, for example. Jane Addams’s emphasis on the cultivation of empathy and John Dewey’s calls for education as civic engagement were rejected as impractical by those who aimed to train students for particular economic tasks. Roth explores these arguments (and more), considers the state of higher education today, and concludes with a stirring plea for the kind of education that has, since the founding of the nation, cultivated individual freedom, promulgated civic virtue, and instilled hope for the future.

About this title

About the Author

Michael S. Roth is president of Wesleyan University. A professor in history and the humanities, he teaches at Wesleyan and reaches many thousands more through his open online Coursera course, The Modern and the Post-Modern.

Reviews

Wesleyan University president Roth adds his voice to the current debate about college education. Is it vocational instruction meant to lead to immediate employment after graduation or a time for expansive ideas and self-exploration? He argues that liberal education, with its emphasis on critical thinking, is an important part of American ideals of democracy. He traces the historical roots of liberal education from the ancient Greeks through the Middle Ages and the Enlightenment. But he focuses on American thinkers, including Thomas Jefferson, Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. DuBois, William James, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Jane Addams, John Dewey, and others. He examines the old debate about the usefulness and even democracy of a liberal education—whether it is aimed at the elite and is useless for the masses—as well as current threats from the government, from business, from political interests, and within the universities themselves. Roth argues that the utilitarians who push toward the practical will turn out graduates trained for “yesterday’s jobs” who have not learned the intellectual rigor and flexibility needed to adjust to whatever the future may bring. --Vanessa Bush

Edition details

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0300175515
• ISBN 13: 9780300175516
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240