UW jump-starts liberal arts
10:57 PM 1/25/04
Karen Rivedal Higher education reporter

At noon, in a partially darkened lecture hall, UW-Madison professor Michael Hinden is talking about the early Renaissance like it was yesterday, not 600 years ago. <

Aided only by a slide show of period paintings and his quivering laser pointer, Hinden is gradually drawing the students in, nearly all 180 of them. You can see it start to happen, in their steady gaze and increasing lean toward the front of the room, and you can hear it, as most of the ambient noise - of books and bags and winter coats unzipping - drops away. <

But how to make this material current, a critic might ask, how to make relevant to today's times this lecture about the signal cultural changes of the late 1300s to early 1400s, as reflected in the characteristically different art produced during those eras? <

Turns out you don't really need to, not as such, if Hinden's class is any measure. The students' natural curiosity, and art's unique representation of human experience over time, provides all the pull that's needed, Hinden said. <

"The arts literally humanize history," said Hinden, an English professor. "That's why they're called humanities." <

Hinden's work with his class, "Western Culture: Literature and the Arts II," encapsulates the aims of a new initiative in the University of Wisconsin System known as "The Currency of the Liberal Arts," a program that System administrators say will help the 26 campuses "rethink" their liberal arts offerings. <

The effort, still in its infancy, could be a sharp departure from the tendency of public universities to measure their worth in terms of technology advances, new jobs and added tax revenues. Instead, some advocates - both in Wisconsin and nationally - are pushing a return-to-roots approach that stresses the value of a broad-based, well-rounded education, with the skills learned in the liberal arts at its core. <

"Politically it sells to talk about jobs and the economy and to draw connections between our curriculum and those two hot-button issues," UW Regent Fred Mohs said. "That's why refocusing attention on the liberal arts is so important. It is the foundation for everybody. An engineer or a scientist needs to be able to communicate. They need to have broader appreciations than merely their technical skills." <

But exactly how this new initiative will "reinvigorate" the liberal arts, which link basic concepts in literature, art, history, science and the social sciences, very much remains to be seen. Only broad outlines of the effort have been worked out so far, and administrators are as careful talking about what it won't do as what it will. <

For instance, all students in the System already must take two years' worth of liberal arts to fulfill the general education component of their degrees. That won't change under the plan, senior program administrator Rebecca Karoff said, nor will it seek to dictate to faculty members precisely how or what they should teach. <

Instead, the effort is an attempt to raise the profile of the liberal arts and get more people inside and outside the university to understand or at least consider its importance. <

For example, officials plan to invite guest speakers with expertise in liberal arts to speak at various campuses. Each campus also will be encouraged to hold a joint campus-community event to discuss the value of liberal arts - knowing that some attendees will be skeptical. <

"A lot of people view a lot of liberal arts education as useless," Karoff said. "What we want to instill in our students and their families and in politicians and all residents is that this is the way you form intellectual and human capital. This is how we develop ways for citizens to make sense of the world around them." <

Half the battle may be getting people more comfortable with the term "liberal arts," said Debra Humphreys of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, which is spearheading a national campaign to advance what it calls "liberal learning." <

The association found that focusing on the desired outcomes of liberal arts produced a wide consensus on their importance, Humphreys said. Business people, academics and the general public value improved communication, civic engagement, ethics and the development of critical thinking - all skills that can be learned through the study of liberal arts. <

"In a tight job market, and especially in a very volatile economy, people are taking a second look at what are longer lasting skills," Humphreys said. "These are skills that enable any worker in any field to learn new things, knowing that most people are not going to stay in the same job or even the same career their whole lives." <

More directly, Hinden described liberal arts as one half of the requisite "breadth and depth" equation of a college education - with classes in a student's chosen major providing the depth and liberal arts offering the breadth. <

One of Hinden's students, sophomore and pre-law major T. J. Birkett, already seemed to have that much figured out. <

"I'm sure I'll learn skills here such as how to articulate my ideas and just look at things with a broader scope," Birkett said. "It's less about being a well-rounded lawyer than a well-rounded person."