Beyond the "Ivory Tower": Restoring the Balance of Private and Public Purposes of General Education

We in higher education have allowed the balance of the private and public purposes of liberal education to become skewed in our angst over fully embracing a central role in restoring prosperity and preparing our increasingly diverse population for the evolving responsibility of mending our fraying democracy. As we consider how best to reshape general education for our time and for the future, we would do well to recall our public purpose and to rethink where and how that education occurs.