Liberal Education III

When we last left our heroes, they were struggling to figure out what liberal education should be at the University of Minnesota. In today’s episode, they update their ideas based on discussion at the third liberal education open forum.

Liberal Education II

The second faculty and staff forum on the future of liberal education requirements at UMNTC was on February 23. My biggest realization while thinking about all that has been said lately about liberal education is that the framing of the discussion as “What do our students need to know?” is not the right starting point. The right starting point “Who do we want our students to be?” I don’t mean who should be admitted, but rather what should our graduates be like? The answer to that question leads us down a path toward our goal rather than simply creating “A Thing To Do.”

Liberal Education

We are the College of Liberal Arts, but the University of Minnesota also has Liberal Education requirements for all students. What we call liberal education other institutions call general education or distribution requirements, but whatever you call these requirements, almost all institutions have them. These requirements effectively spell out the kinds of things that an institution believes an educated person should know or understand. Here at the U, these are split into core (disciplinary groupings such as mathematical thinking, literature, history, etc.) and themes (subject matter groupings such as the environment or technology and society).