By Elizabeth Duclos-Orsello
Department of Interdisciplinary Studies
“The value of an education in a liberal arts college is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think something that cannot be learned from textbooks.”
—Albert Einstein
“To be liberally educated is to be transformed.”
–From statement on “Why Study the Liberal Arts” (website of the College of Letters & Sciences, University of California, Berkeley http://ls.berkeley.edu/?q=about-college/liberal-arts-education)
Elizabeth Duclos-Orsello
The year following my graduation from a small, liberal arts college in New England in 1995, I served as a full time volunteer with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps (JVC) in Kansas City, Missouri (making $300/month to be pooled and spent collectively with/by the five other women with whom I shared a home and a life). I worked as an advocate and psycho-social therapist at a safe home for women and children who had fled domestic violence and I lived in one of the nation’s poorest neighborhoods where crime was high, unemployment was high, and love and community support flowed freely. JVC is best described as a domestic “Peace Corps type” program that places volunteers throughout the US and asks them not only to work toward social justice, but to live a life where simplicity, community and explorations of spirituality are woven into this work. The motto of this program is “Ruined for Life”. But far from being a depressing banner, this phrase profoundly undergirds the goals and activities of each volunteer’s time with the organization. This is not a “gap year”, this is not an “internship” this is not a chance to pad a resume. The goal is to encourage and support volunteers through experiences (good and bad) that forever reshape the way they see the world at large, social issues therein and their own place in both. In this way we all hoped to be “ruined” for life.
But my ability to become “ruined” was a direct result not only of my particular upbringing (which was shaped by parents who pursued social justice work) but of my studies and work in college—in a liberal arts environment that in many ways was anything but geared toward “job placement”. What had been instilled at home was expanded and underscored and even challenged for four years of my young adult life. My professors, the courses I took, and the range of viewpoints, backgrounds and ideas of my fellow students collectively unsettled me, knocked me off balance, pushed me far beyond my comfort zone and beyond some of the easy answers I had meted out in my teens. These years exposed me to theories, case studies, people and places that could not be easily categorized or ignored. A liberal arts education made me think about what I knew, what I thought I knew and what I thought about what I thought I knew. It was not good enough to find one answer and accept it, it was necessary to take contradictory evidence and deal with it as I tried to craft a life of the mind and a life of action. What I’ve come to realize is that this was better than “job” training. This was “life” training.
Some examples: (these tend to focus on the humanities – there were social science and physical science examples as well)
1) In a first year philosophy course Sigmund Freud, Lawrence Kohlberg and Carol Gilligan were read back to back to back. I already knew something about both Freud and Kohlberg and was willing to give them a wider berth than some of my fellow classmates. But when put in conversation with Gilligan and her unique and different ideas about the gendered nature of what passes as “baseline” morality and maturity, I was transfixed…and transformed. What did I define as “normal”? What did I experience as “normal”? Whose voices were given preference? My comfortable sense of “I know this already” was over.
2) In a wonderfully interdisciplinary course on HIV/AIDS and its intersection with the arts as well as public policy and literature and history I first encountered the idea that the AIDS pandemic might be seen as a modern incarnation of the plague of the Middle Ages—and rendered in similar fashion in fiction and the visual arts. And in setting up this historical and philosophical and artistic web the depth of my thinking about the social, political and moral dynamics of the AIDS conversation grew exponentially. I had been an activist before taking the class but I had been someone who saw the issue largely as a medical concern tinged with homophobic overtones that needed action. After this class, which highlighted the role of art and of artists to respond to the AIDS crisis, I was not only an activist but a reflective thinker who was more powerfully positioned to grapple with and discuss the immense web of connected “truths” and “values” that implicated me along with “them” (as I had deemed those who fueled hatred and inaction) in the fight against a deadly disease.
3) Finally, in my senior year in a class called “The Globalization of American Culture” I had a profound “ruining” experience. For years I had entertained plans to join the Peace Corps post-graduation; this was something I had been thinking about for years. Because of this and at the suggestion of my professor (she knew something I didn’t!) I chose for my seminar paper an exploration of the Cold War on the impact and agenda of the Peace Corps in its early years as young people like me set out around the world. Whether due to naïveté or stupidity or something else, I found myself SHOCKED when I began reading of the anti-Communist tinge to the training and missions of those early years. Here I was a well-educated young person on the verge of graduating from a great school and I had never made this connection. I was devastated and profoundly changed. It was not so much that I thought ill of the Peace Corps as a whole (I understood the historical context of my subject) but rather that I had to completely rethink and revise my sense of what divided “good/pure” humanitarian service from “politically-charged” efforts at the same and as I grappled with this I realized that I needed to step back from the Peace Corps for a while; I needed to reset my thoughts about service and “helping others”. I never did join the Peace Corps; I joined JVC instead.
My liberal arts education was not one of convenience – most of the memorable events of those years were profoundly awkward or uncomfortable intellectual and moral moments. I was constantly forced to engage myself—intellectually, morally, socially, politically—and grapple with BIG questions of justice, duty, identity, and my role in civil society.
But some will ask: What was I prepared to DO when I graduated? What job-training did I have? What could I put on a resume? I often wondered this myself and I certainly did not think that I had a resume full of experience to show for my time as an undergraduate. But I suspected then (possibly as a means of self-preservation) and I know even better now that the “adult world” or the “working world” require exactly what I had gained in my less-than-convenient education. Certainly I knew how to think, I knew how to analyze, I knew how to conduct research and I knew how to develop arguments…but most importantly for me and most importantly for the point I wish to make here is the fact that I knew how to let go of my worldview and allow myself to be challenged. I knew that I could handle this sort of de-centering and de-stabilization and I knew that the truly important challenges facing my society and my world (hunger, poverty, war, peace, the environment, justice) could be addressed only by people who could risk being “ruined”….
Now, as a college professor at an institution with many first-generation college students I have regular conversations with students about letting go a little bit to the notion that a college education is about job training. Especially in this day and age when technology shifts and economic uncertainly make even the best laid plans a bit uncertain, I want my students to see the gift of their education as a gift of exploration and moral/intellectual growth. I do and will consistently argue that a liberal arts education is valuable precisely because it de-stabilizes so much. A liberal arts education can and should CHANGE students…in fact that should be the goal. I certainly want to help “ruin students for life”. After all, to quote a statement prominently displayed on the UC-Berkeley website: “To be liberally educated is to be transformed.”
An extended version of this essay was published 8 October, 2008 as part of “The Public Humanist” blog, a blog project of Mass Humanities. http://www.valleyadvocate.com/blogs/home.cfm?aid=10655
This article is part of ASpect’s September 2010 issue on Liberal Arts.
4 responses so far ↓
1 Jim Gubbins // Oct 1, 2010 at 11:47 pm
Yours is the kind of story I wish our students could hear. Other faculty also have tremendous stories of searching, taking on challenging, and sacrificing in order to do the right thing, but most of our students probably don’t suspect that this is the case. As older, professional-type people, we might appear to our students to have taken an easy and direct road to our teaching careers. All those faculty who have taken on challenges and risks, and who still do, to make this world a better place might be role models for our students and for other faculty if they could share their stories in a compelling way. When we take the time to get to know each other, we find that we have an extraordinary and inspiring faculty. I am glad Elizabeth has shared some of her story and that ASpect was there as the vehicle. This reminds me of the untimely death of my brother-in-law, Shelton (Sandy) Davis. He led a courageous life trying to win justice for indigenous peoples. Sandy was a brilliant, widely respected scholar and activist. He was a tireless advocate for the oppressed through his work in various capacities including work at the World Bank. I knew parts of Sandy’s stories while he was alive, and unfortunately learned much only after he died. A call out to the faculty: Please share your stories of courage and struggle now. Don’t make us wait to hear them in a eulogy. I’m especially calling out to the younger faculty whom I’ll probably beat to the grave, so it’s now or maybe never.
2 Tracy Ware // Oct 13, 2010 at 11:36 am
Great examples, Elizabeth. The Peace Corps example is especially poignant in that a class opened your eyes, which changed what you chose to do after you graduated.
While I don’t usually get the chance to speak about the value of a liberal education with students, I too encourage them to stop worrying about the work world. I think the main reason to go to college is CHOICE: the choice to *not* start the job others expected you to take at 18, the choice to hear things other than what your parents told you, the choice and time to make up your own mind, the choice to pursue what you really love, at least for a few years, no matter how impractical it seems. Finally, college gives you the choice to self-determine in every way, including your religion, political philosophy, hobbies, friends, books you read, and the even the career you pursue. I guess I should add….the choice to be knocked off balance and have your worldview turned upside down. This is an important opportunity before one has too many responsibilities.
If all one wanted was a decent paying job, surely there are shorter paths than the college degree. Don’t we all have students who are still in school and make more money than we do? I for one, have had several.
Then again, I love the diverse and thinking world we work in–every single day.
3 poker // Oct 17, 2010 at 9:02 pm
I agree with you about “The Globalization of American Culture”. The spread of globalization will undoubtedly bring changes to the countries it reaches, but change is an essential part of life. It does not mean the abolition of traditional values. Indeed, new global media, such as the internet, have proven a powerful means of projecting traditional culture (and the culture of radical opponents of globalization). For americans globalization means American culture domination. MTV will take over the world. Globalization homogenizes culture and destroys local customs. Starbucks will take over the world.
4 Susan Ross and Labeibah Khader // Feb 14, 2011 at 5:26 pm
You bring up a very good point when you say that students should go outside of their comfort zone. Doing this is essential to learning. By taking youself to new levels, you are able to broaden your perspective and outlook in life. When you are able to do this, you are truly achieving learning. The things that change and stick with you are the things that astonish and usually frighten you, as with the political underpinnings of the Peace Corps for you, Prof. Duclos-Orsello. When someone undertakes the challenge of undergraduate school, she must also accept with that comes the commitment to broadening one’s perspective. The students are not just there to do mundane book work and job training. They are there to find new ways to see the world and themselves.
In the realm of social work and psychology, students usually know not to expect the easy road. When entering these fields, there is a certain level of expectation that the courses will be challenging in a profound way. The classes, in our experience, that have the greatest level of student satisfaction are the ones that “rock your world.” They challenge everything the students thought they knew about the way people work. Psychology, in its nature, is a field where the goal is to challenge others’ work. When testing an experiment someone else has done, the goal is to debunk previous work. By learning to try and disprove past work, students are changing the way they were taught to think. In school, students are taught to go along with data and accept it as fact. In psychology, if this were the norm, progress would never be made. The essence to learning to study psychology is to like you say, “ruin” the students’ thinking for life. In order to figure out where you really think the pieces of life belong, they have to be scrambled up into the air for you to tackle and bring back down to the ground. :]
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