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Credit: Courtesy of St. John's College
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Education Dive
Summer Reading: The changing face of the liberal arts
We look back at recent stories detailing the ways in which small
private colleges are rethinking what and how they teach to stay
relevant.
Hallie Busta
June 17, 2019
The small size and focused curriculum upon which many liberal arts
colleges once prided themselves is proving to be a strain in light of
shrinking enrollment, cost concerns and pressure to teach skills that
more directly reflect what employers are asking for.
Some have been forced to shutter in response. Others are making big
changes to avoid doing so. Those include tuition resets, more hands-on
learning for students and new programs.
In the four stories below, our writers examine these changes and what they indicate for the future of liberal arts education.
Colleges get hands-on to teach students real-world skills
When Shenandoah University's Conservatory canceled classes for a week
so students could create and rehearse artistic projects, they worried
students would blow it off. The opposite happened. Faculty "started to
realize that the success they saw in the students was an affirmation of
the type of training they were providing," said the school's dean,
Michael Stepniak.
The week-long class hiatus is just one example of liberal arts colleges
changing what and how they teach in response to pressures for
postsecondary education to give students skills that translate more
directly into the workplace. Liberal arts colleges' high cost and
exclusivity heighten this pressure.
To survive, small colleges are rethinking the liberal arts
Hiram College, in Ohio, and others like it are revamping their
curriculum to include more experiential learning and opportunities to
build leadership skills. "Colleges don't think (the liberal arts)
resonates with 18-year-olds, but we didn't want to abandon liberal
arts," Hiram President Lori Varlotta said. "We just know they aren't
the same (today) as they were in the 18th (century)." The results are
promising.
What happened when a small liberal arts college stopped raising tuition
St. John's College knew something had to change. Tuition had more than
doubled in two decades and was climbing to unsustainable heights.
"Where does it stop?" asked Panayiotis Kanelos, president of the
school's campus in Annapolis, Maryland. "We just planted a flag and
said, for us, it stops here."
The college, which also has a campus in Santa Fe, New Mexico, slashed
tuition by a third and embarked on an ambitious $300 million
fundraising campaign to expand its endowment to support scholarships.
The college has been largely successful so far. Messaging has been key,
its leaders note.
How Mills College transformed its 'deficit culture'
Financial stability is about more than a college's own financial health
— it extends to that of its students, explained Julia Chinyere Oparah,
provost and dean of faculty at Mills College. And, increasingly, Mills
students needed more support.
To reverse years of budget shortfalls and enrollment declines, the
California college had to take drastic steps. In addition to cutting
staff, it also changed its culture around spending. The college
restructured its curriculum to better reflect the programs students
wanted and to make it easier for students to transfer in. It also
struck partnerships with other colleges.
Making such significant changes required persistence and
thoughtfulness. "You can't burn out in the middle and crash," Oparah
said.
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