"Learning
for Heads, Hands and Hearts: Random Rants and Reflections
on Liberal Education"
Facione, PA. Liberal Education (2001), Vol. 87(3) Summer.
16-21
"Learning
Worth Having. The only education worth pursuing is how
to think wisely and how to live virtuously, harmoniously,
and productively with others and the world around."
"Reason
for Being. Leaders, in contrast to managers, know that
articulating a clear and compelling vision for the institution
must come before, and not after, each department, program,
and school stakes out their necessarily subordinate, divergent,
and inconsistent aspirations. Not sure where to begin? Get
a smart, fair-minded,and clear-thinking group of opinion-shapers
together and start with the assumption that you have the authority
and the means to transform the institution Then ask, whom
should you enroll as students and what would they have learned
after completing their studies with you? What problems would
you use institutional resources to investigate as scholars
and teachers individually and as an institution in the larger
context of our public mission? How might you enrich the health
and life of the community in which we exist as an institution;
in other words, of what real value to the rest of the society
should you seek to be? Since your group does not have that
authority or those resources within its control, the next
step is to expand the conversation to those who do. Educators
educate. Why limit the use of your talents to only your students?"
"Head,
Hand, and Heart. Liberal education aims not only at
the head, but at the hands and at the heart as well We seek
to graduate students who will certainly be more than competent
in their knowledge, but also persons with the skills and
willingness of mind to use that knowledge. We want to graduate
students of conscience, who realize that democracy and mutual
respect will flounder unless they become involved in their
communities and in fostering the common good. And we want
to graduate students of compassion,who remember that in
the end only one person out of a hundred in this world will
have enjoyed the good fortune to have earned a college degree.
And that this fact, if none other, along with the sensitivities
and character that can be developed through a liberal education,
should challenge them to use that good fortune,that blessing,
to seek to make a difference for the good of the other ninety-nine."
"Liberating
Education. Maybe liberal arts and sciences education is
in crisis, maybe not. Then again, so what? What's important
is that we provide the kind of education that liberates the
mind and heart. It would not bother me if that were to become
a feature of all of higher education, including professional
school training In fact, if it did, if liberal education,
that is, education that was truly liberating, were to become
disinguishable from graduate and professional education or
from K-12 education, then forget talk of crisis, for it would
be a cause for joy."
