The attack on a liberal education

SALISBURY, Conn. —   Lynn Pasquerella, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities, will speak at a Salisbury Forum on Friday, Sept. 23, the first presentation of the Forum’s 2016-17 season.

Pasquerella has experienced higher education at all levels, both personally and professionally. First enrolling at a junior college, she transferred to Mount Holyoke for a B.A. — magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa — then received her PhD from Brown University in 1985. After 19 years as a philosophy professor at the University of Rhode Island, she entered administration, and by 2010 returned to Mount Holyoke as president.

Since July 1, Pasquerella has been president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities, an organization of more than 1,350 institutions, public and private, large and small, dedicated to preserving the value of  liberal education in the U.S. and across the globe.

Why does this matter? Pasquerella argues that everyone — plumber, doctor, lawyer, mechanic — needs the tools of critical thinking and the skills of written communication to compete and succeed in a changing, technologically driven world. One in which most American school children are no longer taught cursive handwriting, only the printing of computers and cellphones.

Pasquerella also thinks shrinking emphasis on what we think of as liberal arts — literature, music, art, philosophy, even history and civics — does a disservice to our democracy. After all, she says, liberal arts was the foundation of the entire American public education system. Why is it dying, and what can we do to revive it, both locally and nationally? Or do we care?

Pasquerella is a frequent speaker around the country. Her voice is familiar to us in the Northwest Corner as the host of The Academic Minute on NPR, a program that originated at Albany’s WAMC.

Her appearance for The Salisbury Forum will be on Friday, Sept. 23, at Salisbury School, 7:30 p.m. (Follow the signs for parking near the auditorium.) Admission is free and all are welcome.