Education as a Way of Reflecting on the Future. Working Paper 1.

Overview & Synopsis

This working paper is one in a series of policy statements on the relationship between liberal education and careers in business. In this presentation, the president of the University of Chicago suggests that the importance of understanding education, particularly liberal arts education, as a complex subject is critical in understanding the relationship between liberal learning and private enterprise. Education, corporations, and management have a complex relationship that must be understood in order to put liberal arts in the proper perspective for the future. All people have ideas and theories about education, but little emphasis is placed on specific and complex ways of looking at changes in institutions of higher education and their relationship to other institutions. When considering education, it is necessary to bring in other topics, since thinking about education is in many ways like thinking about the future, present, and past. Ideas about what constitutes a good education have changed over the years; a liberal arts education was championed by the Renaissance humanists, who opposed the "sterile academicians" of their time. Liberal arts must be shown to be currently relevant in ways that differ from the merely technical or professional training. A fuller, more detailed sense of context for developing and teaching liberal arts is necessary. (SM)