What’s liberal about the Liberal Arts?
by Dr. Adehlheid Eubanks
Associate Professor of Language & Literature and Director of the Liberal Arts Studies Program

At Coker College we consider it our mission to educate our students in the ‘liberal arts.’ But what exactly does that mean?

Both terms are confusing because neither of the words means what it seems to. ‘Arts’ simply refers to branches of study that involve knowledge of skills, techniques, or methods of inquiry.

The word ‘liberal’ has considerable baggage these days, implying a certain political viewpoint, for example. One might conclude that the College has the goal of instilling left-wing politics in the minds of its students. In the context of ‘liberal arts’, however, the word actually means ‘free’, as in liberation.

In the Middle Ages there were liberal studies and illiberal studies, these latter being sort of vocational training. This distinction persists today.

Liberal arts studies at the College centers on a set of general skills and broad areas of knowledge. If you read the College’s mission statement, you’ll see an explicit emphasis on effective writing, effective speaking, analytical thinking, and creative thinking. Some or all of these are taught in every course. The subjects of study have enlarged since the Middle Ages, from language studies and mathematics and science (which encompassed music), to include sociology, physical education, and others. The general idea remains the same, however, and traces its roots back through the Middle Ages to Pythagoras and Plato.

The goal of a liberal arts education is to give the graduate mind-tools with which to tackle life’s greatest challenges, be they personal or professional. Analytical thinking allows one to understand and manipulate abstractions, and to break apart complexities into comprehensible pieces. Creative thinking skills allow one to synthesize the parts to produce something new. Effective communications skills allow one to present one’s new ideas intelligently. These are general abilities, and sometimes students don’t immediately see their value.

“When will I ever use this?” is a question one hears from time to time in the required courses. "When will I ever have to conjugate French verbs in real life?”

It’s a classic forest versus trees problem. It’s the small advances made in the conjugations, writing essays, solving quadratic equations, learning the names of Civil War generals, and so on, that add up, bit by bit. In each case, brain cells are working hard to break up problems, create new ones, and communicate the results to others.

No one knows what the world will look like twenty years from now, or what kinds of problems our graduates will be solving. Thinking especially of future employers of Coker’s graduates, it’s a good bet, though, that the same strategies for problem solving that have been successful since the ancient Greeks will continue to be valued.
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Dr. Eubanks joined the Coker faculty in 1995. She holds an M.A. and Ph.D. from Washington University (St. Louis), and has conducted post-doctoral studies at the University of Cologne and the University of Oslo. In summer 2006, Dr. Eubanks is participating in a National Endowment for the Humanities college teachers seminar at the American Academy in Rome.