On April 11, our student body and campus faculty were given an amazing opportunity to attend a talk given by the Dr. Condoleezza Rice as part of a national conference titled ‘Rethinking Success’.
The conference was designed to examine issues related to the relevance and value of a liberal arts education in today’s work world. In other words, is higher education fulfilling its role to intentionally prepare students for life after college?
Dr. Rice, as most already know, was the former US Secretary of State under the second Bush administration, and is currently a professor and Senior Fellow at Stanford University. The Wake Forest population crowded into Wait Chapel to listen to the wise words of the woman who is arguably one of the most influential and admirable public figures in our society today.
Dr. Rice began her talk by discussing the role of higher education in the U.S., and its impact on the rest of the world. She called our higher education system one of the most powerful, and often overlooked, even citing it as “the golden standard internationally.”
All around the world, elites want to send their children to American colleges and universities. We have a reputation for greater excellence. We have a great breadth of options when it comes to institutions for education, and we have what Dr. Rice called “idea tanks,” which foster an endless supply of creativity and innovation. Our system of higher education is also a principle form of social mobility. It embodies the true American Dream, or in Dr. Rice’s words: “…it doesn’t matter where you came from; it matters where you’re going.”
[pagebreak]
Dr. Condoleezza Rice, as a professor herself, also went on to voice her beliefs in the three obligations that liberal arts educators have to their students. The first is to train students: to teach them skills that will be useful to them in the real world. Some of these skills include the ability to write clearly, the ability to make a good argument based on evidence, the ability to make a good oral argument and sustain it, and basic knowledge of subjects like history, economics, and knowledge of other cultures.
The second obligation professors have is to teach students the “transformative power of education.” Dr. Rice insisted that education is so much more than knowledge of your trade. It is knowledge of a variety of different things. It is the desire to want to learn more than the minimal requirement, and to learn anything and everything you possibly can, because knowledge is the most powerful tool you will have when you enter the real world.
So, how should professors instill this love of learning into their students? The answer is by asking them to take many classes that differ from what they thought they wanted to take or major in. This broadens a student’s horizons. It allows them a much wider variety of options, in the hope that that student will find a passion. Declaring a major that students actually do ‘for fun’, Dr. Rice said, will eventually lead to a career that actually makes them excited about going to work each day.
The third and final obligation that Dr. Rice believes professors have to their students is to challenge them. Of course, students should, in turn, also challenge themselves. It’s easy to do what you are always good at doing. If you are a math whiz, it would be the easy route to only take math courses. But by overcoming challenges, not only will students gain a broader set of skills, but they will also get more out of overcoming something difficult.
So, is a liberal arts education really worth it? I believe the above points in Dr. Rice’s speech have already given enough evidence to say yes! It is true that people who are better educated and more knowledgeable are more capable and able to navigate the ever-changing world, and help to move that world into a more prosperous direction. Our liberal arts education is giving us gifts that will enable us to pursue greater endeavors than we ever thought possible, and truly make the world a better place.