Future of Higher Education Research Team Report

This is a critical and essential issue: all faculty and staff can become effective educators & leaders; we focus on this in the Library.

I could not disagree more with the statement “As a result of historical developments since around the seventeenth-century, however, the natural sciences and mathematics are, generally speaking, technical disciplines no longer classifiable as liberal arts in their methodology.” What evidence is there that the methodology used in these disciplines at Providence College is not consistent with a liberal education? At a small, primarily undergraduate institution like Providence College, the purpose of the natural science and mathematics is to teach students how to think independently, how to solve problems, how to communicate effectively, and how to challenge assumptions. We use data from experimentation to dive deeply into the understanding of the natural world much like a historian uses original texts to study a time period or the way an author uses language to tell a story. While the natural sciences and mathematics do, indeed, have technical applications, our students by and large will not continue in these disciplines after graduation, but will rather use the soft skills they gain in learning how to think in order to tackle some of the world’s most pressing problems. In fact, the search for evidence- and fact-based truths available in STEM are critically necessary to lead good, moral lives just as much as theological and philosophical arguments are. I fundamentally disagree that the natural sciences and mathematics are not part of a liberal education. While this statement seems to marginalize the STEM disciplines, there is plenty of room under the big campus umbrella for all of us. In fact, we are all in this together, with the ultimate goal of inspiring students to become lifelong learners. Treating STEM differently is a gross misunderstanding of what it means to be a student or faculty member in the STEM fields at Providence College.

I would add something here about the dramatic and undeniable increase in student debt: I believe a 56% increase between 2004 and 2014.

http://www.unc.edu/~jfstewar/home/tuition/tuition_aid.pdf