As a holiday, leap year is easy to ignore. Is it even a holiday? Or is it just a mathematical correction that Julius Caesar made in 46 B.C. to bring the human calendar in line with the earth 's revolution around the sun?

Still, there are a few festive leap year traditions, such as the ancient Irish lore about it being the one day that women could propose marriage, an earlier version of Sadie Hawkins Day. Or, consider Anthony, New Mexico, the leap year capital of the world, where thousands of 29ers (people born on a leap day) gather for a birthday bash every four years.

I would like to add one more cultural association to this particular 2008 leap year.

By coincidence, an acronym for a national initiative to promote liberal education in higher education is LEAP (Liberal Education and America 's Promise). This 10-year initiative, begun in 2005, is sponsored by the Association of American Colleges and Universities. Wisconsin was honored by AAC&U as the pilot state for this initiative.

Today liberal education means a broad, integrated education. The national LEAP outcomes reveal this goal of a holistic education: (1) Knowledge of human cultures and the natural world (science, social sciences, mathematics, humanities, arts); (2) intellectual and practical skills (including written and oral communication); and (3) individual and social responsibility.

These are laudable, non-controversial outcomes. They are what most of us would think of as a traditional education. What makes the LEAP initiative so urgent is that the modern university has powerful conflicting pressures that lead it to stray from its core mission of educating students. The new president of Harvard University, Drew Gilpin Faust, points out that "the university is not a bureaucracy, not a government organization, not a social-service agency. Its job is to train, to educate, to question. "

I would add two other distractions to Faust 's list. Although I am a rabid Badger basketball fan, universities are not primarily showcases for athletics. Moreover, while research is vital to the university, I believe that the education of our students should be the primary mission of the university.

It is because of these competing claims for the heart and soul of today 's university that I am an advocate for a strong liberal education. Such an education is practical, politically essential and philosophically relevant.

For all of these reasons, I hope that the readers of this column will consider the importance of a liberal education on this 2008 leap year.

For a long time, the state 's commitment to the university system has been eroding, to the point that we are now a favorite whipping boy for cranky, opportunistic politicians.

A change in the political landscape will only occur when the people of Wisconsin awaken to the real value of the university system. At the core of this value is a rigorous liberal education.

We can all help to realize this awakening, whether it is through our votes, through our demand for smaller university classrooms with more required writing, or through our more general commitment to the cultural and intellectual sides of Wisconsin life.

Savage, of Madison, is chairman of the department of languages and literatures at UW-Whitewater