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Digication Scholars Conversations...
Welcome to Digication
Scholars Conversations.
I'm your host, Jeff Yan.
In this episode, you will hear part
one of my conversation with Laura
DeSisto, Program Director and Senior
Lecturer for the Master of Liberal Arts
program at Johns Hopkins University.
More links and information about today's
conversation can be found on Digication's
Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Full episodes of Digication Scholars
Conversations can be found on
YouTube or your favorite podcast app.
Welcome to Digication
Scholars Conversations.
I'm your host, Jeff Yan.
My guest today is Laura DeSisto,
Program Director and Senior Lecturer
for the Master of Liberal Arts
Program at Johns Hopkins University.
Hi, Laura.
Hi, Jeff.
How are you?
Good, good.
Welcome, and it's great,
it's great to see you here.
Um, I've wanted to talk to you forever.
Uh, I think that, um, uh, well, first
of all, Uh, I've been just so impressed
by your work with your students in
this last year and a half or so that
I think we started working together.
It's just fabulous and
it's amazing to see.
Um, but, uh, that's why I want to
invite you here to share some of,
you know, some of what I get to see.
You know, I feel so privileged,
um, but before I do that,
um, we go and dive into that.
I, I would love to.
Talk more about you and sort of, um,
tell us a little bit about yourself,
you know, how you came to be.
And, and you are the, you are,
you're a program director for
the Masters of Liberal Arts
program, um, at Johns Hopkins.
Um, maybe, you know, give us a little
background on yourself and also maybe
a little intro to folks who I may
not be even aware that people get
master's degree in the liberal arts
because I think a lot of people know
that there is a liberal arts component
to a lot of four year undergrad,
you know, sort of college degrees.
What is, what is, what is, you
know, we'd like to dig into
that in a little while too.
So Um, but why don't you
tell us about yourself?
Sure, yes.
And first of all, thank you so much, Jeff,
for inviting me to have this conversation.
I've really enjoyed the many conversations
we've had over the last year and a half
and it's just been such a wonderful
experience to explore what Digication can
do and how it opens up new opportunities
for my faculty and for my students.
So Really, I'm grateful to have
this opportunity to talk to you.
So, uh, in terms of providing that
background, I'll touch on both.
Maybe what I'll do first though is start
with talking about the MLA program as the
point of entry and then I'll, I'll share
a little bit about how and why I came to
be in the position with regard to the MLA.
So the Master of Liberal Arts at Johns
Hopkins is actually the first graduate
program of its kind in the United States.
So you're right to be asking this
question because we're the first ones
who created a a master's level degree.
Primarily, or with the focus of being
just the liberal arts in a very broad
term rather than a specified discipline.
Uh, and it's, we just celebrated
our 60th anniversary, so we've
been around for a while now.
Uh, of course, we have now a number of
other programs across the country at other
wonderful universities and they go by
different names, Master of Liberal Arts.
Masters of Arts in Liberal Studies
and other variations thereof, but,
uh, across the board, these master's
level programs are intended to provide
students with opportunities to take a
deeper dive into the liberal arts, um,
at a level that goes beyond what's more
typical at that undergraduate four year,
either in terms of the general education
or core curriculum, Or, in terms of
the more highly specified, discipline
specific major that students completed.
With regard to the MLA program at
Johns Hopkins, what makes us unique,
and this has been with us the whole
time since we were first established,
is that we are really a program
that is interdisciplinary by design.
So, we are not, there are other
models that are out there,
so that's the disclaimer.
The choice that we've made with the Johns
Hopkins Master of Liberal Arts program.
Is that our courses are topic or question
driven, and then our faculty and students
engage with, study, examine, explore
that topic or question, drawing from
multiple disciplinary perspectives,
even if each faculty member might have
a particular area of specialization
that they bring to the conversation.
They're still expected to also
go on that journey and bring in
other disciplinary voices and ideas
and responses to that question.
So, uh, our students, it's,
it's a non specialized master's
degree in that respect.
Um, but we do have some.
Common threads that exist
across our programs.
So, regardless of which specific
topic or course our students are
studying, we do want them to be
grounded in the history of ideas.
We want them to understand the,
the scholarly discourse that has
occurred up until this point in time.
We want them to understand history
and context and social movements
and all those different factors.
that have contributed to our understanding
of ourselves and the world around us.
So, we make sure that that happens.
As I already mentioned, we are very much
interested in questions, whether you
call them essential questions or eternal
questions or unanswerable questions.
We're, we're, we're interested in
providing our students with openings
and opportunities to explore those
questions in depth and to work their
way into finding some way of engaging
with them thoughtfully and meaningfully.
We also want our students to be able to
understand That each discipline has its
own complexity in terms of how it responds
to different topics, or ideas, or issues,
or challenges, and to be able to work
within the complexity of each discipline,
and then also be able to work across
the different disciplines, and put those
different methods of inquiry and dialogue.
So, that's what's
happening in our program.
I hope that doesn't sound too
abstract, uh, happy to elaborate
further, but, uh, that's the
approach that we take with the MLA.
Yeah, actually, I'd love to get a little
deeper into, you know, maybe what's an
example of one of these big questions,
you know, big topic that, that might start
that conversation and then what would
A, you know, an example student will do.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, that's a, that's a
what students will do.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's a really great question.
So, um, and I should also add that we have
the model of our program is very flexible.
Our students do 10 courses.
They take one core, eight electives,
and one capstone, and that'll come
up later in our conversation as
we're talking about Digication.
With our core, they actually choose
from five different core options, and
then they can take additional cores
as electives as they go through.
And part of what we've played with
with some of our core course titles is
putting them in the form of a question.
So I'll give you those two examples to
answer your question, but of course,
there are many, many more that I could do.
So One example is, uh, our core
course called What is History, and
the other example is our core course
that is called Why Read the Classics.
So for What is History, its the point
of it is to help students actually
learn about historiography, which
is something that you usually don't
encounter, certainly in your high
school education Depending on how
far you go with studying history and
undergraduate, you may or may not have
many opportunities to do, but what it
essentially does is it helps students
understand that history is a field that is
constantly in the process of being made.
And so our, our understanding of a
particular topic changes and shifts
as the scholarship in response to that
particular topic changes and shifts.
So What our students then do in that
course is they pick a particular topic
that's of interest to them and they
don't just study the topic from a direct
standpoint of what are the facts, what
happened, and who, who was impacted.
Instead, what they're doing is they're
looking at what has the scholarship said?
about what happened.
How has it changed?
Who was doing that study?
What voices were heard?
Which voices and
perspectives were excluded?
What other threads or other
interpretations or other directions?
Have people gone in and responding
or navigating or investigating
that particular topic?
And how does the understanding of those,
I don't want to say evolving, right?
Because it doesn't always mean a
neat and tidy progression, right?
Sometimes they're very distinct and
competing ideas of or interpretations
of what happened um, when
looking at that particular topic.
It allows students to then
get at the deeper questions.
about who we are, what can we know,
what does it mean to make claims, right?
Uh, a lot of students think of
facts in very objective terms,
uh, as if they're established and
unquestioned and those sorts of things.
So as you start with that very broad
question of what is history, you
actually end up starting to ask these
other questions that get to some
of those more eternal, potentially
unanswerable, but always really
interesting and rewarding to look at.
Questions about who we are and
how we understand ourselves.
What is the, what is the
nature of story, right?
What is the role that story plays
in our understanding of ourselves?
And who shapes those narratives?
And then when certain accounts
of events become accepted, what
are the consequences of that?
And how does that affect and impact,
uh, things that happen later on down the
line, whether directly or indirectly?
So, So that's one example.
Is that helpful?
Yeah, it's, it's amazing.
To me, it almost feels like, um, you know,
sort of thinking about, um, You know, like
the difference between looking at, you
know, sort of, you know, the first time
you see, you, you had algebra class and
then you're like, well, hold on a minute.
There's also, um, you know, you know,
there, there is also calculus that
completely just, you know, like looks
at it in a completely different way
and is ever going to be changing.
Exactly.
look at it at a microscopic
level, you know?
Yeah.
Um, and when you look at it
like that, it's no longer just a
straight line on, on the curve.
Yeah.
Exactly.
It's actually, you know, it's the
straight line that just happens to be a
straight line and you see it that way.
Right.
Yeah, absolutely.
Extremely.
Extremely sophisticated and.
I, I kind of wonder, you know, for me,
I mean, this is, you must swim in an
intellectual pool of, um, you know, it's,
it's like intellectual pool of heaven,
you know, people, you know, thinking
and challenging these big ideas all day.
Yeah.
And that's, that's one of the things
that I am reminded of every single
day and working in this program,
uh, both in terms of the faculty.
Who are drawn to teaching in this
program because it does mean you have
to be comfortable putting yourself
outside of your own comfort zone, right?
You can't, uh, the nature of doctoral
studies primarily, especially in
the U.S., is, but also around the
world, is highly specialized, right?
So all of us who have our doctoral
degrees are coming from a very highly
specialized background in terms of
our research and the work that we do.
And our courses not only say to our
students, but also say to the faculty,
you can't stay within that comfort zone.
You can't stay within those boundaries.
You have to be open to thinking
about other angles, other approaches,
other disciplinary lenses.
can add additional dimensions to
the conversation or open up whole
other areas of critique even.
And so our faculty definitely
have that disposition and then our
students are the ones who set the
example time and time and time again.
We have such an incredible,
diverse, inquisitive, highly
motivated group of students.
Who, who dive into the opportunities
in this program and just never cease to
amaze me with the directions that they
take, uh, the conversations and the class
discussions and those kinds of things.
Yeah.
I mean, this, I mean, in, in some ways,
you know, you were talking about these,
you know, folks having, you know, these
essential questions and having discussions
and debates and, um, Would you, would
you call it sort of Socratic in the
way that it's, um, it's structured?
Yeah, I mean, I, I think,
I think to an extent.
So the critique that some people have
of the Socratic method, and I, and I
don't think it's actually grounded in
the Socratic dialogues, at least my
interpretation of the Socratic dialogues.
Um, but many people see that the
Socratic method when it's used in
a higher education environment.
is almost a performative act, right?
To bring to that, that actually
something that I think Socrates,
at least as we know him through the
dialogues, would probably critique.
Which is asking provocative questions
just for the sake of asking them and,
and I don't think that's actually what
he was doing and I, and I, or at least
the way it's portrayed in the dialogues
and, and I would say that the more
generous interpretation of, you know,
the Socratic dialogue or the Socratic
method in teaching It's definitely
something that we're doing, right?
Where Just the concept
of keep asking questions.
Yeah.
And not just keep asking, but
ask the follow up questions.
Because what I see Socrates doing
in those dialogues is he's asking
the follow up questions to take
it beyond the surface level.
To go deeper.
To say, okay, if you answer
this question in this way.
Doesn't that bring up all these
other questions, and how can we fully
understand our answer to this first
question if we don't also then take the
time to think through what it means to
answer that question that way or how
we go about answering these secondary
and tertiary and so on and so forth?
These other questions that follow.
And so that genuine, going back to
some of the other things that we've
talked about in the past, that genuine
approach, that authentic approach to
question it, asking for the purpose of
the shared project of trying to make
meaning and understand things better.
Absolutely, yes.
Happily, fully embrace that that is
something that we're trying to do, uh, in
our courses, uh, throughout this program.
Yeah.
Well, I, I ask also because, you know,
it, it has become a bit of a buzzword for
especially a lot of K 12, you know, um,
sort of schools, people talk about it.
Um, sometimes I sort of wonder, you
know, that you have a 60-year-old model
that has been working tremendously
well, um, and you, you are, you know,
it's, you're understanding it, you're
also multiplying your, your, your
knowledge year over year as well.
So it's, it, I almost feel like
that in this MLA program, you've,
you've got an accumulation of,
explosion of, like, amazing amount
of knowledge and experiences.
But it's not about content, it's about
the construct and the process of how to
learn and how to, how to be, um, a better
human, how to be someone who understands
the world, you know, um, in a, in a,
in a, in a more meaningful way, right?
Yeah.
These are things that We, at least I
feel, I know that you have a, you have
a young child and I have children, that
we want, I would want my five and six
year olds to be able to experience this.
Even though they are far from
being able to do the level of work
that you do with your graduate
students at Johns Hopkins, right?
But I feel like that there's got to
be some, some ways of making Making
some connections there because I
don't believe, I mean, I believe that
by the level of rigor, um, yeah, I
mean, they probably won't have the
level of maturity and knowledge and
sophistication to maybe have the same
kind of conversations, but it shouldn't
be taken away the opportunity to do that.
To learn in that way.
Absolutely.
Uh, so I have so many things I
want to say in response to that.
So, um, and I guess this will
get back to one of your earlier
questions about my background.
And so I should explain that my
PhD is in philosophy and education.
So it was an inter even though I
said we're highly specialized, in my
case, it was an interdisciplinary,
highly specialized doctoral degree.
And so Um, I have been for a very, very
long time, over 20 years, uh, interested
in these intersections between philosophy
and the work of education, and not
exclusively higher education, right?
Education, and, and, and in fact, a good
portion of my career prior to joining
Johns Hopkins was in teacher education.
So work, and those.
I have a very special place in my heart
for working with, um, future educators
and then also long serving teachers, uh,
who, uh, go on to, uh, Do additional work
in, and I can talk about that later too,
but in the liberal arts in particular.
And so emphatically, my answer
is yes, there is a place for
these kinds of conversations at
every single level of education.
I also, as you mentioned, happen to have
a four year old and an eight year old.
At this point in time, dispositionally,
My four year old is much more
open to the kinds of philosophical
conversations I try to have.
My eight year old, it'll be more of
a journey to get her there, but, uh,
she, she enjoys many other things, but
sometimes she'll just roll her eyes
at me, but maybe that comes with the
territory of having an eight year old,
uh, but, um, there are, so I should say,
I've been thinking of my colleagues,
there are some amazing people who are
trying to do this kind of work in pre K
through 12 environment, and there are some
amazing scholars who've done this work,
especially throughout the 20th century,
really, really good work has been done.
It's not necessarily, and this is
part of the dance of do you, are you
overt in calling it philosophical,
you know, the infiltration of
philosophical ideas and thinking.
And teaching methods in the K 12
environment, or are you doing it,
you know, in more subtle ways?
But, um, there is an organization called
the Institute for Philosophy for Children.
And they work directly with teachers,
um, in that pre K through 12, uh, range.
Um, and they have wonderful programs and
training and those kinds of things are,
there's excellent research out there.
Uh, back when I would teach in,
uh, teacher education programs in
undergraduate and graduate alike,
there's this really great book called
Little Big Minds by Marietta McCarty.
And she takes that more question driven,
like she takes a certain topic and
she talks about how you can engage.
With very young children all
the way through in that more
conversational approach, how do you
talk about something like death?
How do you talk about something
like the concept of time?
Because honestly, many children
come to philosophical questions
quite naturally, right?
They're trying to make an
meaning and and understand
everything that's all around us.
Many of the things that we already.
Have ceased to question or we take
for granted and so, um, it, it
absolutely is the case that there's
a place for this kind of work and
that kind of educational environment.
There is good work being done, but
I always think there could be more.
What I'm thrilled to see is
that a program like the MLA.
is such a good fit.
We do have a good number and a nice
strong history of educators who come
and pursue the MLA program as a part of
their ongoing growth and professional
development and that sort of thing.
And I just think it, it suits them
very, very well to, to have these
opportunities, even if the specific
topics they study in our classes.
You know, it might not be the same
readings that they bring to their students
in their classrooms, but they, time
and time again, tell me, Oh, I'm taking
elements of the different things that
I've encountered in the MLA program and
directly bringing it into my classroom
and sharing it with my students.
And they are eating it up.
They are devouring it.
They're absolutely connecting with The
types of things that my students are
bringing with them from this program,
which I think goes back to, you know,
those other things that we've been
talking about, which is that when
you are trying to understand and
make meaning of the world around you,
it no longer seems like a stale or
abstract or pointless exercise, right?
It's not.
Having somebody jump through hoops just
for the sake of doing it and saying
no, like, what does it mean to be in
this world with other people who have
vastly different ways of understanding
the concept of what truth is or what
objectivity is or that sort of thing?
How do we see that playing out?
And then you can, you can imagine
examples just flow from there.
And then you can, and then.
How do you, how do people
approach those topics or ideas
from a literary perspective?
What does that look like in
a historical perspective?
And so on and so forth.
And students of all ages are able,
again, you scale it and you would make
adjustments for the different age levels.
But, um, they're able to connect
because those connections
already are present, right?
It's not forced.
It's not something that's, um, shoehorned
in to, to the work of learning.
Well, those are some of the things that
I, I, I feel like, you know, that worries
me so much these days, um, is in the,
you know, extremism and the tribalism
of, you know, how our world is, is
being organized, especially with the.
With the popularizations of all of the
social media in which they take advantage
of the fact that oh, hold on a minute we
can take emotion as one of our, our, our,
our tools, ammunition to draw eyeballs.
I know.
Unfortunately, it turns into money.
It's almost like, oh man, I wish they
had found anything else, you know?
I know.
But as a result, I almost feel like that
in the last And I don't, I guess, you
know, the most recent history always
seems most, you know, you know, feels,
feels most, most true, but, you know,
but, but definitely it feels very real
that, um, we, that our society doesn't
have meaningful ways to, Disagree with
each other without trying to kill each
other, um, you know, like, like the,
like you were talking about having
critiques and having discourses, you
know, these are fantastic ways to,
like I said, it sounds like a pool of
intellectual heaven, but in the way
that You know, it's being translated
in our world today, it's not, right?
It's turning into the
opposite direction, you know?
Yeah, absolutely.
And, you know.
One of the things, so the MLA program
obviously being 60 years old, um,
the majority of its history has
been traditional on campus classes,
uh, at primarily at the Johns
Hopkins Baltimore Homewood Campus.
But in more recent years, so I'm
about to enter into my sixth year
here at Johns Hopkins, and I would
say it was approximately three
or four years before I jo joined.
The program had started moving.
over into also providing online offerings.
And at this point in time, uh,
due to a variety of different
factors, we're primarily fully
online at this point in time.
And in fact, We're asynchronous, which
means for people who don't know is that
there's no specific day and time in
which all of the students are logging
in together, whether it's, um, through
a video conference or, or something else
where they're all engaging simultaneous.
An asynchronous online class, uh,
has a very different approach and,
and for us, Our students still work
within a weekly schedule, they still
have shared assignments, they still
do projects, they still have all
the range of different kinds of, of
things that a student normally does
in any class, but the conversations
happen across the duration of a week.
And the reason why I'm bringing this
up in response to what you're saying
is that, so first of all, as we, you
know, increasingly became more and
more of an online program, there's
the knee jerk reaction of, you know,
the romanticized notion of the in
person classroom environment and So
much is lost, and so on and so forth.
And I'm sympathetic.
I understand that, again, the majority
of my teaching career, you know, decades
long has been in in person environments,
and I do, there is some really special
energy and synergy that comes from
having a group of people all in the
same room together, all dialed in and
discussing ideas with one another.
But the reality is actually that
oftentimes in those environments, the, the
strongest, most confident, loudest voices
are the ones that are heard the most.
And of course, we as educators
are trained to find different
ways to create those spaces.
To make sure all the students
voices have an opportunity to be
heard and to share and contribute.
But some people are processors and like to
spend more time crafting their responses.
And other people think in ways
that don't fit within the confines
of a time bound class session.
And what I have seen, and this I
think connects back to what you're
talking about, is that because of
the asynchronous model, because of
the fact that our students have
time to compose their responses to
different questions that we're asking.
So then carefully read over
their classmates thoughts, right?
Nobody gets to hide.
Nobody gets to avoid responding
to a question or idea.
And then they're required to engage
thoughtfully with each other's comments.
Not in a knee jerk, quick, fast, you know,
these, these kind of very abbreviated.
Um, Reactive kind of ways
that we often see play out,
especially in certain platforms.
Um, instead, they have, you know,
even if they read something that
they disagree with strongly, and
maybe their initial response is to
be like, what are you talking about?
They have an opportunity
to step back, right?
It's still within the boundary of a week,
but still, to think about how might I.
Respond to that other person in my
class, acknowledge what I hear them
saying, and then push back in ways
that are productive, that might help
that other person understand their
point of view, and so on and so forth.
So I think that the format, although
we're, you know, there are Again, we're
still navigating it, and it's a good
fit for some people more so than others,
but what I am seeing is it becomes an
exercise in teaching us how to engage
with one another in online spaces, which
can otherwise seem very impersonal.
Otherwise, seem like these almost
combative, reactive spaces in ways
that push against all of that, right?
To develop those habits of discourse
and dialogue in, in ways that make
it, it's not impersonal, right?
They, our students create really
amazing lasting relationships with
one another, and they could be located
on completely different Parts of the
country, different er different parts
of the globe, different time zones,
different stages in their lives, and
all those different sorts of things.
Because I think in part, they have
to hear what everyone has to say.
And they have to be able to respond
thoughtfully and constructively
to the diversity of viewpoints
that they share with one another.
I know that was a roundabout way to get
back to your point, but I see it play
out time and time again, and I'm hoping
that that'll have a ripple effect.
And improve, um, some of those challenges
we now have with, like you said,
discourse and tribalism, all of those
different things that have emerged.
I think it's a, it's
an amazing observation.
I think that the, this idea that
just providing time to think and
reflect is something that, um,
Especially in the Western culture
is not celebrated very much.
I mean, people start to now do a
little bit of like, you should meditate
and, you know, you know, stay in the
moment and all this kind of stuff.
But, um.
If you look at our calendars, our
schedules, our, what goes on to a regular,
I mean, your, your, your eight year old,
I'm guessing that, you know, their lives
are, you know, in school is packed.
You know, one thing turned,
another turned, mine are, right?
And there is an ever never ending amount
of content that, you know, that people
are trying to shut down their throats.
Um, and, um, and it comes
from every direction.
And that this idea of being able to just
taking a, you know, the time and just
kind of be like, you know, I'm going to
compose and feel this for a little bit.
I may disagree with it, but.
Let me really feel whether I actually
disagree or do I just not feel comfortable
to actually digest it a little bit.
And then I realize why I disagree with it.
And may not even be for the reason
I thought it was going to be.
Maybe I'm not even mad about it at all.
Maybe I'm just like, I just
realized I learned something.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And all of this, the ability to,
ability to learn to how to disagree
with someone and And, uh, but, but,
but to me, there's also this taking
away part of the, the current, um, I
think you, you used the word combative
and I really feel that I think there's
almost like a, a sense of the activity
that we engage in, I have to win it.
There wasn't even a competition, right?
It wasn't even a competition.
I have to win it.
I have to beat the other person, right?
But instead in your situations where
they can be like, you have a week,
together we're going to construct
something that will benefit all of us.
Right.
That's a, that, they,
they're all going to win.
So it wasn't a, it wasn't
like, I'm going to beat you.
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And you know, and I think I, I
could not agree with you more.
And, and again, I see that play out so
many times and I think also one of the
benefits of the MLA program in that it
isn't highly specialized and there isn't
a particular professional goal posts
that everyone is the, they're not all
working toward the same, uh, outcome or
benefit of doing the MLA program aside
from personal, the personal enrichment
angle, um, which then means they're not
competing in an environment of scarcity
in the way that Even other really healthy
academic environments, sometimes as
you get closer and closer to graduation
people realize, well, we're all, we've all
been trained to go into the same field.
We're all looking for positions,
you know, we all want the same jobs.
Who's getting them?
Who isn't?
Where are you in your journey?
That sort of thing.
In a program like mine, which doesn't have
That specific professional outcome at the
end means that you're absolutely right.
It removes layers of that
competitive environment as well.
They, like you said, everyone wins
and it's constructed in a way in which
there's no, there's nothing else at stake.
Except for doing the work well
and approaching it with an open
mind and a genuine willingness
to learn from one another, right?
And in that kind of context,
there's plenty of room at the table
for everyone to contribute and
everyone to get something out of it.
And there's, you know, and of course,
I'm not trying to downplay the fact
that our students also have very real
pressures and goals and Professional
visions that they have for themselves
that they're working toward.
I'm not at all trying to say that that's
not a reality of their experience.
Of course that's present.
But it's not at the cost of the
other members of the program, right?
It's not, it's not set
within those parameters.
And I, I think that that also
helps to alleviate some of that
feeling among the students too.
Yeah, I love that.
Um, as you were talking about, um, you
know, that your students have, um, you
know, they go on to do incredible things,
they, they have great aspiration, um, I, I
wanted to actually talk a little bit about
this idea of, um People's thinking about,
you know, sort of professional specialists
versus like a professional generalist.
Um, I, I think that there is a, uh,
there, there, I feel like there's
got to be so much, um, inaccurate way
of us thinking about, you know, like
what, what it means to get that higher
education degree, potentially getting
into loans, maybe getting, some of them
maybe getting scholarships and whatnot.
The idea, though, that they are
gonna, you know, go and get a degree
in, actually, people attack liberal
arts education, I should know.
Um, you're, you're, you're spending,
you know, your, especially on
the undergraduate level, right?
You're spending your college years,
you know, not learning a sellable
skill, a, a, a, um, something that
you can, you know, you can bank on.
Is it possible?
Which I think you and I could
categorically say that it's untrue,
but let's break this down, you know,
but, but, but the, like, how would
you, how would you react to that?
Yeah.
You know, I, I have a number of different
ways in which I respond to that.
You know, of course, as you know, too,
there are, um, a number of organizations
out there That do the, the in depth
research, you know, like AAC&U has
a number of those reports available.
I think Georgetown did one recently,
um, that, that looks at the actual
facts around individuals with liberal
arts education and, and the reality
is that the economic, the negative
economic impact that people claim in
the kind of just general discourse.
actually isn't what you see play out.
Um, that's not my world.
I'm, that's not the kind of research I do.
So I, I can't speak to it in
depth, but I've certainly read it
and I share it with my students.
And time and time again, especially in
terms of the duration of one's career,
what it shows is that individuals with a
liberal arts degree have a longevity to
their careers, even if the specific work
that they're doing might shift or change.
But it also shows if my, if I'm
remembering the research correctly.
Um, uh, uh, greater propensity for,
I guess I should say, uh, stepping
into leadership roles, right?
And, and there are some
very real reasons why.
And I'm not saying that
it's the only pathway.
I want to make sure that's very clear.
Just like we were talking about before.
I'm not interested.
In it being a match where, you know, it's
one versus the other, liberal arts versus
a highly professional, you know, there are
many different pathways for people to find
fulfillment, to find happiness, to find
their sense of self, and that's great.
Good for them.
But for a good number of
people who pursue liberal arts
degrees, they end up developing.
Certain abilities to analyze, critique,
respond to, adapt, innovate, lead that
serves them well in whatever professional
pathway or environment they choose.
And it also tends to be the case that
they have a little bit more flexibility.
In terms of how they understand their
pathway moving, right, because it
hasn't already been spelled out for
them that if you do this, you're
guaranteed a job doing this next thing.
And then from there, the stepping
stones go in this following.
Because if, if you have pursued a liberal
arts degree, there is an understanding
that you're going to have to figure
out how what you have to offer.
Fits within what's available all
around us and then make that case
for yourself and how you do that
and then work your way through.
Right?
So, there's more work that goes into
crafting that pathway than the ones
where maybe it's paved a little bit more
smoothly for them, but that does tend
to lend them or provide them with some
benefits when there are disruptions to
the economic environment and there are
disruptions to the workforce and, and
what careers can be and I, and I, and
I'm saying this drawing from my own
personal experiences and the networks
of people I know, but also from talking
with students who are in my program.
So, I should clarify that our program
has anyone from recent college graduates
to people who are in their mid 80s.
We have students who have, um,
highly specialized degrees.
We have doctors, lawyers, judges,
finance individuals, you know, CEOs,
MBAs, all of those sorts of things who
have gone on and had those careers.
And we also have people.
Who are educators, who are social
workers, who work with students in
admissions offices, and, and we have
artists, and we have creators, and, and
people who, um, you know, engage with
the world in, in much different ways
than the other students, and everything
in between, you can, you can imagine.
And talking with them about Why
they're drawn to this program and
how they see it connecting with their
lives and those kinds of things.
What they usually tend to say
it's it's a few different things.
One is they felt that their world what in
whatever career or pathway that they're
on had become too narrowed where they
were having the same conversations with
the same kinds of people and they weren't
You, I don't know, to use a metaphor,
drawing from a deep enough well, right?
They weren't feeling as though, like
their, their life had just become
smaller and smaller and smaller, and
they knew that there was more going on.
There are more conversations to be had.
There are more perspectives to hear.
And so they come to a program like this.
To do that, hopefully also then to
bring that back into those worlds that
they felt were narrow or hopefully to
find communities of people who also
push back against that kind of narrow
worldview and also like them share an
affinity for the kinds of questions
in intellectual work that we do.
I also hear from students that some
of them, because they already are in
a space, In which people are drawing
from a much broader array of ideas
and texts and influences and all those
sorts of things and what they had in
their own education, and they want to
pursue this degree to be able to become
a part of those conversations, right?
Like, they didn't see themselves as having
The intellectual or cultural capital to
fully engage before and they see this
as a way of being able to bring them up
to speed so that they can dive in and
navigate those spaces with confidence.
And, you know, and you can
imagine again that there are
different iterations from there.
There's no one single model or
pathway that goes back to this
point, though, that it doesn't
really matter if you're an engineer.
Or a teacher, or a doctor, or a lawyer,
or what have you, there are worthwhile
ways of approaching how you think about
the world, the, the, the way you go
about trying to make meaning of it and
understand it and learn from what others
have said and done that can be useful.
And that's why these critiques about the
Alleged uselessness of a liberal arts
education has always been perplexing
to me because first of all, one of the
things a liberal arts education does
is explore what it means to be human.
And insofar as all of us are human beings,
it is deeply and profoundly relevant to us
to understand what it means to be human.
The, the, the relevance and the use
of it is inherently apparent to me,
but fine, I understand for others,
you know, maybe they, I don't know,
maybe they want to seek that out
through other sources and that's fine.
But then going back to these other
things about, okay, fine, even if, and I
acknowledge as a philosopher, I'm really
interested in concepts of being and,
and maybe for some people they're not.
So maybe being human.
isn't as interesting to them, but we
still have to interact with one another.
We still have to find ways to
communicate with one another,
to understand one another.
If, if you're in any kind of
professional environment that exists
on a global level, I mean, I've had
to work overseas as an expat before.
I've had to learn what it is to be in
cultures that are completely different
from my own background and experiences.
And I had to learn how Respond
authentically and with an
open mind and respectfully and
learn from these individuals.
And I think that draws from the
foundation that I had in the liberal arts.
Of recognizing that there are different
ways in which we engage with one another
and there are different histories that
have been told and different forms of
expression and creativity and on and on.
This concludes part one
of our conversation.
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