ing passage carefully and summarize the writer’s concerns in just one paragraph. Universities today face many serious challenges, not the least of which is filling classrooms with paying students. To do this, colleges have created a consumerist mentality in which the students are dictating the manner in which the material is presented, rather than the professor teaching the material in the way that is most conducive to learning. This has created an environment that is stifling personal creativity in all aspects of academia. In ―On the uses of a liberal education‖ Mark Edmundson points out that students in today‘s colleges lack a passion for learning and creativity. The consumer mentality has taken over to the point where students purchase a degree, that is, in essence, a certificate to enter the workforce. One of the reasons for this lack of expression is built into the academic institution itself. In the professional arts, which is the path that most students follow, there is very little room for personal expression. On the other end of the spectrum are the liberal arts, where personal expression and self- improvement are the main values. Students are affected in very different ways by this difference in the two curriculums, and George Houston fails to recognize this in ―Bury the Liberal vs. Professional Arts Debate. Students in the professional arts
36. Read the following passage carefully and summarize the writer’s concerns in just
one paragraph.
Universities today face many serious challenges, not the least of which is filling classrooms with paying students. To do this, colleges have created a consumerist mentality in which the students are dictating the manner in which the material is presented, rather than the professor teaching the material in the way that is most conducive to learning. This has created an environment that is stifling personal creativity in all aspects of academia. In ―On the uses of a liberal education‖ Mark Edmundson points out that students in today‘s colleges lack a passion for learning and creativity. The consumer mentality has taken over to the point where students purchase a degree, that is, in essence, a certificate to enter the workforce. One of the reasons for this lack of expression is built into the academic institution itself. In the professional arts, which is the path that most students follow, there is very little room for personal expression. On the other end of the spectrum are the liberal arts, where personal expression and self- improvement are the main values. Students are affected in very different ways by this difference in the two curriculums, and George Houston fails to recognize this in ―Bury the Liberal vs. Professional Arts Debate. Students in the professional arts are working for the grade, in sharp contrast to students in the liberal arts who work for the sake of learning and knowledge itself. This major difference in attitudes is a reason that students do not display passion towards their studies.
The professional arts students, who are in majors such as business, engineering, and so on, take courses that directly apply to the jobs or careers they will be involved in after graduation. The material is useful on the job and helps them to become more successful in their careers. The course material prepares the mind to think, reason, and analyze in the way that will benefit them in the workforce. The mind is being trained, but only insofar as to help in the workplace. This is in stark contrast to the liberal arts curriculum and philosophy. A liberal arts degree prepares the student for a lifetime of learning, where the professional arts degree is a coupon to get a certain job that would be unattainable without the piece of paper. In the liberal arts environment, self-improvement and expression are the goal to which the students aspire.
Classroom material is presented and regarded in a much different way in the liberal vs. professional arts. Students studying the latter are given test in which the answers are predetermined, and all that is required is knowing the formula to find it. Fill in the bubble, run it through a grading machine, and a grade is spit out. The answers are known beforehand and grades are given according to which students can most closely match the results of the professor. In the liberal arts, the answer is not weighed as heavily as the process of thinking and analyzing. Also, there may not be a right answer; each student may give a different view of the same subject, each correct in his or her own way. This climate not only asks for, but demands an amount of personal creativity and expression. This is a major difference in the professional and liberal arts.
Another significant difference is the way in which education is viewed. A liberal arts major will see their degree as a starting point in their education, to be continued throughout the rest of their lives. A professional arts major will see it as the end of their education because the degree if the goal, not the education and the learning that goes with it. George Houston does not take this into account in his essay. He argues that cultivating the mind is the goal of any education, and that how you acquire some of these characteristics is immaterial. How the characteristics are gained may be immaterial, but the attitude towards the education is a crucial difference that Houston fails to recognize.
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