Liberal Arts Colleges in American Higher Education

Liberal Arts Colleges in American Higher Education:

Challenges and Opportunities

American Council of Learned Societies

ACLS OCCASIONAL PAPER, No. 59

In Memory of Christina Elliott Sorum

1944-2005

Copyright ? 2005 American Council of Learned Societies

Contents

Introduction

iii

Pauline Yu

Prologue

1

The Liberal Arts College: Identity, Variety, Destiny

Francis Oakley

I. The Past

15

The Liberal Arts Mission in Historical Context 15

Balancing Hopes and Limits in the Liberal Arts College

16

Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz

The Problem of Mission: A Brief Survey of the Changing

26

Mission of the Liberal Arts

Christina Elliott Sorum

Response

40

Stephen Fix

II. The Present

47

Economic Pressures

49

The Economic Challenges of Liberal Arts Colleges

50

Lucie Lapovsky

Discounts and Spending at the Leading Liberal Arts Colleges

70

Roger T. Kaufman

Response

80

Michael S. McPherson

Teaching, Research, and Professional Life

87

Scholars and Teachers Revisited: In Continued Defense

88

of College Faculty Who Publish

Robert A. McCaughey

Beyond the Circle: Challenges and Opportunities

98

for the Contemporary Liberal Arts Teacher-Scholar

Kimberly Benston

Response

113

Kenneth P. Ruscio

iii

Liberal Arts Colleges in American Higher Education

II. The Present (cont'd) Educational Goals and Student Achievement 121

Built To Engage: Liberal Arts Colleges and

122

Effective Educational Practice

George D. Kuh

Selective and Non-Selective Alike: An Argument

151

for the Superior Educational Effectiveness of Smaller

Liberal Arts Colleges

Richard Ekman

Response

172

Mitchell J. Chang

III. The Future

177

Five Presidents on the Challenges Lying Ahead

The Challenges Facing Public Liberal Arts Colleges

178

Mary K. Grant

The Importance of Institutional Culture

188

Stephen R. Lewis

The Future Ain't What It Used to Be

197

Michele Tolela Myers

A Story Untold and Questions Unasked

205

David H. Porter

Liberal Arts Education at Large Research Universities

and at Small Liberal Arts Colleges

218

Morton Owen Schapiro

Contributors

225

iv

Introduction

This ACLS Occasional Paper presents the proceedings of a conference on "Liberal Arts Colleges in American Higher Education: Challenges and Opportunities" convened by ACLS in November 2003 in Williamstown, Massachusetts with the support of the Oakley Center for the Humanities and Social Sciences at Williams College and the collaboration of the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Eighteen speakers on five panels focused on historical perspectives, fiscal pressures, professional life, student achievement, and the future of liberal arts colleges. The papers delivered were revised following discussion and an additional entry, Michael McPherson's, was solicited for this volume. Including Dr. McPherson, ten current or former college presidents participated in this discussion.

Williamstown was a particularly appropriate site for these deliberations, even apart from the beautiful settings and the superlative hospitality. Memories of Williamstown once prompted the former president of Hiram College and future president of the United States, James A. Garfield, to define "[t]he ideal college" as Williams College president "Mark Hopkins on one end of a log and [a] student on the other." As Williams College Professor of History emeritus Frederick Rudolph notes, Garfield's statement reflected momentary unintentional nostalgia, "for henceforth the ideal that he evoked would compete at ever-increasing disadvantage with a host of new ideals" of higher education.1 Professor Rudolph chronicles how the ideals of the American college changed in

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