Students need a liberal education

How do we best prepare students for success in the 21st century? This is, perhaps, the most profound question we face as educators and is a question all the state's colleges and universities take seriously.

The world is rapidly changing, as are the needs of employers. In a recent national survey by Hart Research Associates, employers report that in addition to a solid disciplinary depth, the top skills they look for in new employees include effective oral and written communication, analytical reasoning, past real world experience through internships and other service learning, and the ability to connect choice and actions to ethical decisions. By these standards, 75 percent of employers surveyed agreed recent college graduates do not have the skills to be successful in today's global economy. In essence, narrow learning and mere credentialing is no longer good enough for the complexities of our world economy.

It is also a fact that up-and-coming professionals will change career tracks multiple times. In other words, the best career preparation is one that positions the graduate with a set of transferable intellectual and practical skills, applicable in a variety of contexts.

Enter the liberal arts and sciences.

David Kearns, former CEO of Xerox Corp., remarked, "The only education that prepares us for change is a liberal education. In periods of change, narrow specialization condemns us to inflexibility. We need the flexible intellectual tools to be problem solvers, to be able to continue learning over time."

A modern-day liberal arts curriculum provides a depth and breadth to the educational experience. Universities use the term liberal to mean broad?(i.e.?"liberally" given). The essential aims and outcomes of a practical, contemporary liberal education?are to: (1) impart solid disciplinary knowledge; (2) impart essential intellectual and practical skills, including written and oral communication, critical and creative thinking, etc.; and (3)?impart to students a sense of individual and social responsibility. We applaud the Utah System of Higher Education's initiative to partner with the Association of American Colleges and Universities' LEAP program (Liberal Education and America's Promise). This initiative will assist with educational reform efforts to focus Utah on learning outcomes relevant for our new global century.