ASSESSING YOUR GOALS (continued) For a thorough explanation of a liberal arts education, we have turned to the words of William Bowen, former President of Princeton University, in an address he made to his students in 1979. A liberal arts education is, he said:
A strong affirmative commitment to the study of the basic arts and sciences, and to the conception of education that exalts the individual, that is concerned with values, and that is meant to encompass an appreciation of the nature of citizenship in a republic. …It is our hope that students will graduate with at least a reasonable understanding of the human condition, of the ways people express themselves through art, literature, and music, the ways they relate to each other through organizations, the vagaries as well as the patterns of history, the characteristics of the natural world and the universe in which we live, the nature of modern technology, the languages and cultures of other people, the role of religion in shaping the lives of individuals and societies, and the rigor and beauty of mathematics. …At least as important are the habits of mind that we hope to see you develop as you learn for yourselves what it is like to take a difficult problem, break it down into its components, examine them in light of relevant principles and available evidence, and develop conclusions that you are prepared to defend – and then, I hope, to modify in light of criticism, new evidence, and better ideas. Required is self‐ discipline, a certain humility and more than a little willingness to start over again.
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