American Academy for Liberal Education: Liberal Arts Posse

Harvard Magazine

Liberal Arts Posse
by Lisa Watts

A newly formed group of educational heavy hitters believes that the traditional liberal arts education is headed for the endangered-species list.

“The first duty of a university is to teach wisdom, not a trade,” Winston Churchill once advised. Precisely so, Edward 0. Wilson would say. Wilson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Baird professor of science at Harvard, is worried enough about the direction in which liberal arts programs are heading—toward vocationalism, for one—that he has joined forces with a dozen other educators and administrators to form the American Academy for Liberal Education (AALE).

Liberal arts colleges are threatened by “eroding standards, spreading vocationalism, increasing specialization, rising prices, and heightened political correctness,” says AALE board member Chester Finn Jr. ‘65, Ed.D. ‘70, a leading conservative voice in education reform. Jeffrey Wallin, the group’s director, adds, “Good solid courses are being abandoned in the name of shallow courses that sound fashionable but don’t require a great deal of work or aren’t serious in approach.” Instead, AALE members believe that traditional liberal arts education should ground itself in core courses in math, science, languages, literature, and Western civilization, and should stress, as Churchill said, the teaching of wisdom or knowledge.

Standards for a quality liberal arts program as defined by the group include ample Core courses, an emphasis on teaching—especially by senior faculty—and a focus on substantive learning over cognitive development. Having set its criteria, this fall the academy will apply to the Department of Education for federal recognition to offer accreditation to colleges and university programs. The AALE accreditation could be a mark of prestige, a stamp of approval to help parents judge schools.

Wilson says he will serve the academy primarily as an adviser on science education, a subject to which he has devoted many committee hours at Harvard, including five years as chair of the faculty committee overseeing the undergraduate science program. Harvard, in his estimation, would qualify immediately for AALE accreditation: “I think Harvard students get an excellent liberal arts education. The Core curriculum is famous, with a very strong science program, and facts show the senior faculty are more involved in the teaching of undergraduates than at most small liberal arts schools.”

This spring’s unveiling of the academy and its board of heavy hitters—others include Jacques Barzun, history professor and former provost at Columbia University; former Colorado governor Richard Lamin; and John Agresto, president of St. John’s College in Santa Fe—produced a stack of press clips and a rash of appearances on Television talk shows. But while talk of education reform seems to find a receptive audience, the AALE also has its critics. Some see the group, with conservatives like Finn on its board and funding from the historically conservative Olin Foundation, as a right-wing attack on the multicultural curriculum-reform movement. Wallin refutes such charges, saying that he worked to assemble a board of educators from a wide political spectrum, ranging from conservative to liberal, and even including a Marxist.

Wilson, who is known as a centrist, sees the group the same way. “So many people spring to the posture that you’re either ‘p.c’ or ‘anti-p.c.’ We believe multiculturalism should not be carried to excess,” he says. “We emphasize the understanding but not necessarily the approval of Western civilization. That could be called conservative, but I just call it common sense.”