Last evening I attended a lecture given by Leon Botstein, President of Bard College, at the Yale Center for British Art. The lecture explored the discussion about the future and character of the liberal arts studies, including the digital humanities, the centrality of computing, and STEM fields in the University. The intent was to get beyond the rhetoric of defense and outline a genuine reform of undergraduate and graduate education that is persuasive and responsive to the current climate of public criticism, disinterest, and skepticism regarding the humanities and the arts.
Botstein discussed the current structure of the university in our country, and how unfortunate it is that higher-level education is too often siloed into specialized departments or 'majors'. He notes that these departments "inevitably favor their best students, defined as those who hold the most promise for a scholarly career ... the truth is that life is not divisible into majors. Neither is work nor, believe it or not, learning or scholarship." He stressed the importance of being able to explore multiple disciplines relating to, or sometimes not commonly thought of as relating to a specialization or a 'major.' For example, "Studying philosophy might be just the thing an undergraduate engineering major needs to become an innovative engineer. The essential training engineers get in problem solving, using mathematics and the procedures of basic science—not applied science—turns out to be critical in the workplace later on. So, too, is an education in complementary disciplines, including history and philosophy. Likewise, a solid understanding of psychology and literature, not to mention American economic and social history, will serve an undergraduate business major better than a course in marketing, especially if that student has the acuity and instinct to recognize its value."
Many of these thoughts are outlined in an passage entitled The Love of Learning that Botstien adapted from his 1997 book Jefferson's Children: Education and the Promise of American Culture.