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Chapter 1 Remaking, Renewing, Reimagining The Liberal Arts College Takes Advantage of Change Rebecca Chopp President, Swarthmore College The “distinctively American” tradition of residential liberal arts colleges rests on the foundation of an early social charter between American higher education and democratic society.1 Simply put, the story goes like this: Sixteen years after the Pilgrims landed on the shore of Plymouth Harbor, Harvard was founded. As the frontier of the rapidly expanding United States moved west, new communities organized colleges as soon as they were able. In the 1860s, the great land-grant universities emerged with an even stronger focus on meeting the needs of individuals and communities. With each wave of development, higher education evolved to serve one great mission: educating leaders and citizens to realize their individual potential and build their capacity to serve in a democratic society. These dual goals—supporting the development of the individual and cultivating the common good—are inextricably linked through the belief in and practices of freedom. In the American narrative, freedom combines the pursuit of individual passion or fulfillment with service to the common good. Individuals are free to be themselves, but this freedom, as expressed in a wide variety of ways, is for, not from, service to the common good. Over time, the main components of this historical narrative became consolidated into three primary principles that form the foundation of what we know as residential liberal arts education: critical thinking , moral and civil character, and using knowledge to improve the world.2 First, critical thinking, rather than mastery of technical or codified knowledge, is the heart and soul of a liberal arts education. Our tradition requires that we encourage students to refine their capacity for analytic thinking; ask difficult questions and formulate responses; evaluate, interpret, and synthesize evidence; make clear, well-reasoned arguments; and develop intellectual agility. It is both “art” and “science” in that students are educated not only to master knowledge 14 Reimagining the Liberal Arts College in America but to create new modes of performance, production, or design and find connections and discover new ideas and perspectives. Critical thinking helps students learn how to learn, preparing them for a lifetime of work, service, and well-being, no matter what professions, vocations, and lifestyles they choose. Society is served by the ongoing expansion of intellectual capital that is both self-critical and innovative within personal, cultural, economic, and political realms but that also advances the common good. Second, residential liberal arts colleges cultivate a moral and civic character in students in terms of both their individual choices and their contribution to the common good. Moral character does not mean mastery of a defined code of ethics but rather the cultivation of habits and characteristics that reinforce moral behavior individually as well as communally. Athletics, arts, as well as political, activist, and cultural groups on campus have a powerful impact on students and serve as vehicles for individual and communal development. Many of these colleges offer special leadership development programs, and nearly all would cite a history and goal of educating individuals who contribute to their fields and their communities. The cultivation of character, combined with the development of critical thinking, creates capacities in the individual for what John Dewey liked to call “associative living.”3 An education that cultivates the responsible expression of individual freedoms in the context of nurturing the common good is essential to strengthening democratic communities. Third, using knowledge and virtue to improve the world is the ultimate aim of an education that serves individual and communal freedom. Liberal arts education is renowned for educating people to serve the world in multiple expressions, styles, and practices, whether through theater or the arts, economic analysis, scientific discovery, creative writing, the development of social policy, or historical interpretation. While the area of focus may be very limited and precise, the whole point of critical thinking and of cultivating moral character is to live well and to serve the common good. This twofold “ultimate” mission is the raison d’être of liberal arts education that, as William Sullivan has noted, expresses the best of the Western tradition: “The whole classical notion of a commonpaideia, or moralcivic cultivation, rested on the assertion that growth and transformation of the self toward responsible mutual concern is the realistic concern of public life”4 (emphasis mine). In this tradition, individual flourishing is defined both as the pursuit of one’s passions and as service to others, and this capacity to fulfill...

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