An Education That Liberates the Mind

Read the news lately and you’re bound to come across an article or two diminishing the value of a college degree or questioning the relevance of colleges and universities in general. President Sarah Willie-LeBreton isn’t having any of that. A staunch defender of higher education and the ability of the liberal arts to open minds and transform lives, she sees the burgeoning mistrust of colleges and universities as part of an attempt, driven largely by ideology, to change the face of leadership in this country. Here, Willie-LeBreton discusses the real benefits of education and how the liberal arts can set you free.

In your inauguration address last fall, you said that it’s a challenging time to be in higher education. Talk about some of the headwinds that colleges and universities are facing these days.
There are so many. But let me first say that colleges, including Smith, are doing a great job of actually delivering an extraordinary, multidisciplinary, multiexperiential education. What we haven’t done particularly well is tell that story to counteract the propaganda against higher education that is out there today—for example, that we’re more about indoctrination than education; that the value of education and the liberal arts, especially, has diminished; that applications to colleges have fallen off because we’re no longer relevant. All of this distracts people from the real benefits of college. I invite anyone who doubts the value of education or the liberal arts to our campus to sit in on our classes, to see how devoted our faculty are to scholarship and how seriously they take their charge to share their expertise with our students, and to see how engaged our students are with multiple issues and perspectives. It’s truly inspiring.

Do you think the propaganda you spoke about is being directed at liberal arts colleges in particular?
There seems to be a mistrust of institutions of higher education in general. But, unfortunately, I do believe that a lot of people think liberal arts means liberal politics. When we talk about the liberal arts, we’re really talking about an approach to higher education in which we privilege the breadth of disciplinary learning that takes place when you study widely. Inherent in this approach is the belief that the study of the arts and sciences offers us perspectives that set us free. And who wouldn’t want to be liberated in this way?

That would seem to be the purpose of an education, to liberate you so you can think freely.
Yes! It liberates one in so many ways. It gives one confidence in one’s own thinking. It gives one the curiosity to question one’s assumptions. But it isn’t only about freedom. It’s also about exposure to the limits of what’s come before, learning the assumptions of a disciplinary approach and the walls and guardrails that direct certain lines of inquiry. The liberal arts require other people’s points of view. They offer exposure to the human-centered skills needed to understand the world, and they may also suggest a passionate lifelong endeavor. And there’s unequivocal evidence that liberal arts graduates choose their own jobs rather than being chosen by them.

As we talk, students are protesting on campuses around the country. What role do you think civil discourse and dialogue play within the liberal arts?
They’re central to the liberal arts approach. For example, faculty, in their preparation as scholars, learn to familiarize themselves with the literature of those who came before them, even if they disagree with it. They have to advance an argument that is sound and backed up by evidence and previous scholarship. Today, more and more scholars are doing work at the intersection of various disciplines. This natu- rally leads to conversation and discourse that is more productive and leads to the creation of more knowledge and understanding if it is civil and mutually respectful.

What about students? Does engaging with the liberal arts better prepare them to deal with conflicting ideas and opinions responsibly?
I would hope so. They get that model by observing faculty and from living together in community. If you’re taking a variety of classes, as a liberal arts education requires you to do, then you’re getting multiple perspectives. You also see that faculty aren’t insulting each other in the halls when they disagree. Rather, they show a tremendous amount of respect for each other. The great thing about college is that you come to see how rich the world is when you include and encounter different perspectives. Sometimes students don’t absorb that right away, but they eventually get it.

If you had 90 seconds to pitch the liberal arts to a doubting student or parent, what would you say?
I would say three things: First, when you graduate and go into the workforce, you are likely to have between one and two dozen jobs over the course of your career, whereas your grandparents probably had one or two jobs. The changing landscape of work means that our students will need to know how to learn, collaborate with others, and do research. The liberal arts approach prepares you for all of those things. Second, over the course of your career, you are more likely on average to have a higher salary with a liberal arts degree. Students who graduate from pro- grams that are narrower may earn more at first jobs, but over time the liberal arts approach pays off. Data backs that up. Third, as I said earlier, you are likely to have many different jobs during your career. If that’s the case, the narrower your degree when you graduate, the fewer your options. If you’ve been exposed to several different disciplines and have learned the basics about collaboration and research, you’ll be set for life. The liberal arts offer students more choices, a greater likelihood of a job that they choose, the ability to pivot and be collaborative, and the capacity to find a position that allows a comfortable standard of living.

Return on investment is a big topic of conversation among students and parents. What is Smith doing to ease some of those concerns?
We’ve invested targeted resources to improve our academic advising and our career advising. We’re inviting students to begin thinking about their careers when they arrive in their first year instead of the spring semester of their final year. We are pairing our career advising office with our leadership center so that students appreciate that we expect them to be leaders in their fields. They’ve gotten into Smith, so we know they’re leaders. They just need to see themselves that way. Along with advising, students have access to an array of co-curricular opportunities that help them have a more satisfying college experience and maybe even fuller and more satisfying lives after college. We know, for example, that when students participate in co-curricular activities, particularly club and varsity sports, they tend to do better in the work world because they’re used to working with people on a team, managing their time effectively, and collaborating with people with whom they may not share politics. These are all skills that will serve our students well over their lives and skills that employers seek when hiring.

What’s the danger to society if we lose faith in the liberal arts?
I think we become much more siloed. If you’re only being educated to check off a list of skills to perform a specific job, then we’ve lost the wonderful co-mingling that takes place when you have people with different skills, expertise, and viewpoints working on some- thing together. Really successful engineers know how to bring a full creative team together. Successful diplomats are multilingual and understand peace and conflict studies as well as world history, art, and economics. Extraordinary poets and writers bring different cultures and values to their work to illuminate the specificity of their experiences in ways that have a universal impact. These skills are exactly what the liberal arts prepare students for. When we’re separated from others with different perspectives and ideas, we are more likely to become self-righteous, less curious, and despairing. And that combination can lead us to distrust each other and disinvest in community. It can also make us more vulnerable to a party, person, or idea that promises to save us. The liberal arts, and education in general, teach us to invite multiple perspectives, listen to the ideas of others, and assume we have much to learn. I believe that the multidisciplinary teaching and learning that oc- curs at places like Smith is crucial to our progress as a species and the planet we call home.