Carol Geary Schneider, president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, said via email that she found the presidents rhetoric disappointing. In recent years, weve sunk into a whats in it for me approach to learning, making career earnings the litmus test both for college and for different majors, she said. The president speaks well in principle about our responsibilities to one another in a democratic society. But he seems to have forgotten that college can build our desire and capacity to make a better world, not just better technologies. It was depressing to hear President Obama describe college mainly as vocational and/or technical training in the State of the Union address, and its even worse to have him casually dismiss one of the liberal arts -- or even the whole idea of baccalaureate study -- because you can earn good enough money in a skilled trade. The fact of the matter is that human beings need bread and roses -- and people who help make things do it better, as Steve Jobs said and demonstrated repeatedly, when they study both the arts and technology.
Posted on: Fri, 31 Jan 2014 14:25:52 +0000
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