LEXINGTON, Ky.—Transylvania University, an early leader in liberal arts education, will host the annual faculty seminar titled” Twenty-first Century Liberal Education: A Contested Concept,” July 15-18. The 17 seminar participants were selected from a pool of applicants from prominent liberal arts colleges throughout the country. They reflect the diversity within the professorate at liberal arts colleges and include faculty members from Pomona, Smith, Middlebury, Washington and Lee, St. John’s, Asbury and Earlham.
Seminar sessions include “The Historical Background to the Contemporary Debates,” “The Classical Tradition in the 20th Century: Robert Maynard Hutchins,” “The Rival Tradition: John Dewey,” “The Classical Tradition Redux: Allan Bloom” and “The Purposes of Liberal Education: Varieties of Individual Development.”
Participants are asked to consider the application of liberal education principles to enhance their own effectiveness as college and university teachers – in the classroom, in the preparation of course offerings and in the construction of curricula at their academic institutions.
John Seery, George Irving Thompson Memorial Professor of Government and professor of politics at Pomona College, will give the opening address, “The Liberal Arts as a Coal Mine: Assessing the Canary’s Cough.” The plenary speaker is Randall Bartlett, professor of economics at Smith College. His address is titled “Liberal Education in a Technological Age.”
Through this seminar, Transylvania University and its Bingham Program for Excellence in Teaching seeks to contribute to a national conversation on the idea of liberal education and the mission of the liberal arts college in twenty-first century America. Jeffrey B. Freyman, professor of political science at Transylvania, is the seminar coordinator and director of the Center for Liberal Education at Transylvania.
For more information, contact the public relations office at (859) 233-8120.