Archive for December/2008

31
Dec

What’s a Liberal Arts Education Good For?

Written on December 31, 2008 by Felicia Appenteng in Arts & Cultures & Societies, Philosophy

Over the next few months, in homes across America, seventeen and eighteen-year-olds will be conferring with one another and with their parents about a life changing decision: What college to go to! After months of research, visits, and advice from "experts," these young men and women must now decide: Where will I be happy? Where will I make friends? Where will I get an education I can afford now, and an education that will remain valuable for years after graduation?

In this same time period, our government officials will be deciding where an investment in America’s economic infrastructure will do the most good. Commentators from different political perspectives have often noted that one of the great advantages of America is its peerless higher education system. Although other sectors have diminished international roles, higher education in this country continues to inspire admiration around the globe. When politicians talk about this, they often emphasize the research output of large universities, but the focus should also be on American undergraduate liberal arts education. Liberal arts in the USA provide not only a pipeline of talented and prepared students to the great graduate schools, but also a model for life-long learning that other countries are beginning to emulate.

But in these challenging times, what’s an education in the liberal arts good for?

OPEN TRIBUNE Is there any value in a liberal arts education today? Part 6 of 6

Written on December 28, 2008 by Felicia Appenteng in Arts & Cultures & Societies

Jeremy Whitty is an Associate Professor in Operations and Quality at IE and also the Course Director for the MSc. in Pharmaceutical Medicine at Hibernia College.

So how can we bring the liberal arts to the population? If we are teachers, every time we take a class, no matter what the subject, encourage questions and let arguments develop where they will. If we are students or workers participating in a meeting, do not be afraid to challenge the status quo and constantly refine to do so and how we can build on answers to create something new. However we need to do more: I sense a yearning by many to rise above the flotsam and jetsam of tabloid culture and I believe technology is not an enemy of the liberal arts but a useful ally. Because of their ability to span the globe and being relatively inexpensive to run, online programmes using modern technology and the rigorous standards schools like IE and Hibernia College apply could be used to reinvigorate the liberal arts and so society in general. The internet will have a greater affect than the printing press, it can be left develop as a mindless repository of biased information manipulating the user and cutting her off from her birthright: the cumulative knowledge of thousands of years of enquiry, or it can be a liberating tool that will finally bring us as a species out of Plato’s cave and help us realise the promise of the Renaissance.

For those readers who are interested, I would like to start a discussion, perhaps in the facebook site for this blog at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=8631611798&ref=ts ? on the ideal curriculum a hypothetical online Masters in liberal arts should have. Some of the discussion might revolve around its priorities. How can we distil the liberal arts into thirteen months? How would we encourage active scholarship and arguments? What are the most suitable technology and forums to use? How do we convince people of its importance? The questions are many but the need to equip people with the mental armour only a liberal education can furnish us with is more urgent than ever before.

28
Dec

Put Culture in the Cabinet

Written on December 28, 2008 by DeansTalk in Arts & Cultures & Societies, International Relations

As published in the New York Times

Photo of Bill Ferris

By WILLIAM R. FERRIS

Chapel Hill, N.C.

IN 1935, as part of the New Deal, President Franklin Roosevelt created the Farm Security Administration, which reached out to rural families as they struggled during the Depression. Roy Stryker, who oversaw the agency’s photo documentary program, captured the strength of American culture in the depths of the country’s despair. The photographs of Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange and Gordon Parks showed us both the pain of America and the resilience of its people.

In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson drew on his Texas roots when he created the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, organizations that share America’s arts and humanities with the American people.

Both Roosevelt and Johnson demonstrated their forceful commitment to the preservation and celebration of American culture — and they did so in challenging times.

So what will President-elect Barack Obama do? Well, here’s a suggestion.

Boxing Day Is for Giving

Written on December 26, 2008 by Arantza de Areilza in Arts & Cultures & Societies

By JUDITH FLANDERS
Published: December 25, 2008 New York Times
London

ASK most British people what Boxing Day is for, and they will answer, “It’s the day the sales start.” Or, possibly, the day for “visiting the rellies” — Brit-speak for relatives. Ask an Irish person and you will get a history lesson on Christian saints and martyrs, reminding you that it is St. Stephen’s Day in Ireland. Ask an American, of course, and the answer is: “Boxing what?”
Boxing Day, usually thought of as Dec. 26, but technically the first weekday after Christmas, has a distinguished pedigree in Britain, and during this time of economic crisis, it is good to be reminded of it. It is on Boxing Day, after all, on the “feast of Stephen,” that “Good King Wenceslas” looked out and saw the snow, “deep and crisp and even.” The cold was notable not for its beauty, but for the hunger that it brought with it. The king calls for food, wine and “pine logs” not for his own feast, but that he and his page may “bear them thither” to give to the poor.

In Britain, post-Reformation amnesia over saints’ days saw St. Stephen’s Day renamed, but even “Boxing Day” is a reminder that the day is one for charitable giving. Maundy Thursday, at Easter, is for charity from the great (the queen still hands out what are today Maundy coins of a small but symbolic value, but were once very real money — alms for the poor people); Boxing Day, in contrast, is for giving from everyone.
In the 19th century, the “boxes” of Boxing Day were either literally boxes of gifts or money, given by employers to staff and servants. On Boxing Day 1872, Hannah Cullwick, a maid-of-all-work, the lowest kind of household drudge, wrote in her diary, “I go round every year to the master’s or missis’ tradesmen and ask for Christmas boxes, and they mostly give me a shilling or half a crown.” (Half a crown was two shillings and sixpence, or perhaps two days’ pay for a lowly live-in servant.) She and her fellow servants were given this money by the shopkeepers as a thank-you for bringing the household’s business — and as an inducement to keep shopping there in the new year.

Servants also expected a tip from the guests who visited their employers at Christmas — and from today’s perspective no tip could be too much for the drudgery involved. Cullwick recorded working from 6 a.m. to 4 a.m. to create the “family” Christmas her employers expected: she cooked for nearly 50 people on Christmas Eve and 20 the following day — with one person part-time to help her. As a treat, she was allowed to “run up” from the basement to stand in the hallway and watch some of the amateur play that the guests put on. She added wistfully, “I often think what a most delightful pleasure that must be, going home for Christmas, but I’ve never once had it.”