The Advantages of the Liberal Arts College

by Richard J. Scaldini, President of Hiram College

December and January are peak periods for admission representatives of the nation's 3600 colleges and universities. It is during these winter months that high school students typically turn their attention to their college search and begin to apply to the schools on their short list. As students in the United States enter into the next phase of investigating their higher education options, they do so with many advantages not afforded to students in other parts of our world as our country is blessed with a wealth of excellent institutions, public and private, large and small.

Naturally, there is a tendency on the part of students and their parents to associate greater quality with size at the expense of all but a few, well-known smaller institutions. But our country also has a long tradition of outstanding small colleges. These are the liberal arts colleges, distinctly American creations, that focus on undergraduate education as opposed to the graduate and professional programs that give added luster to the larger institutions. One is led to ask what advantages can possibly lay with these small colleges? Can they offer an education competitive with that of the research universities? I contend that the liberal arts college has many distinct advantages and that, as a platform for life and career, it is almost unsurpassed. I will use my own Hiram College as an example, but our country is rich with many more like us.

First and foremost, the liberal arts college offers unparalleled access. Access has many meanings in an educational context. It denotes the availability of education to able students regardless of social or economic position; the ready accessibility of institutional resources; the ability of every student to play a meaningful role in the college community; it means visibility and recognition of the individual's talents.

Many consider liberal arts colleges to be exclusive havens for the middle class. This myth fails to grasp the institutions' commitment to social and economic diversity. At Hiram College, a majority of our students come from families earning less than $60 k per year. We seek a diverse student body as one of the necessary conditions for a rich educational experience and preparation for citizenship in a diverse society.

With low student-faculty ratios, liberal arts colleges provide greater access to faculty in smaller classes and more numerous opportunities for out-of-class consultation. At Hiram, faculty routinely entertain students in their homes and make themselves readily available for advice and guidance. This access follows logically from the student-centered mission of our College. Does this mission entail an unfavorable trade-off between research and scholarship credentials in favor of attention to teaching? Hardly. Our faculty counts Fulbright, NIH and NSF scholars. They are active in many kinds of research that directly enriches the classroom and frequently involves the students themselves as research collaborators. The difference is in the institutional focus, not in the quality of the scholars.

Access also means the possibility of varsity play for student athletes who may not aspire to upper division play, or who do not wish to constrain their academic options for the chance to play. The small institution affords the student a greater interaction with institutional leaders, the senior faculty, trustees, administrators, and alumni, as well as distinguished visitors. Students engage directly with the strong minds that shape the institution. As a result, they set forth in life confident of their ability to hold their own with the noteworthy thinkers of their time.

The liberal arts college offers the student greater visibility. Talents are more easily recognized, appreciated and cultivated. One's views are easily shared and critiqued, giving the individual a cogent experience of civic participation and responsibility. College life is a crucible of citizenship; it constitutes an ideal environment in which to test the student's ideas and principles.

If the student is more visible in the small college, the student also has greater impact on the life of the institution. The individual student can grasp, know and engage the community in a significant way. Hiram grants substantial authority and independence to its student organizations, and we respect that autonomy as a precious learning experience. In general, students are encouraged to assume leadership on the issues and activities that they value. They are involved as research and teaching assistants; they work in positions of significant responsibility in many administrative areas; and they serve on most of our governance and search committees.

Access, visibility and the opportunity to have an impact challenge and stretch the student. This is the greatest advantage of the liberal arts college: the environment for personal growth. At Hiram, we speak of Intimate Learning. Global Reach, the combination of a close, mentoring, learning environment with access to the broadest experience of the modern world. Using technology, curriculum, term structure design, and internships as well as experiential and service learning opportunities, the College gives students access to an astonishing range of experiences on campus and around the world.

During the last year and the next, Hiram students will study in Japan, France, England, Zimbabwe, Israel, Russia, Costa Rica, Turkey, not to mention Washington, DC and our Hiram and Northwoods, MI field stations. Some 50% of our students study abroad during their career at Hiram. The average for four-year institutions in the U.S. is 8%. Obviously, the size of our institution does not force a negative trade-off between the close, advisory nature of the learning experience and the breadth and sophistication of the program.

How does the small institution do it? It has the great advantage of a mission defined almost exclusively by the commitment to undergraduate education. The baccalaureate program does not compete for key faculty and other resources with graduate and professional programs. Indeed, where post-baccalaureate programs are offered, they must often be justified in terms of the enhancement they will bring to the undergraduate program.

The focus on the undergraduate experience is also a source of creativity. The singular mission binds the academic community more closely and lowers the barriers to collaboration across fields of specialization and curricular innovation. Jack Welch, in his recent memoire on his years at GE, makes the point repeatedly that his most successful operations had the enthusiasm and creativity of small, start-up businesses. The challenge of for GE's management was to foster this spirit throughout an enormous company.

The best liberal arts colleges are those creative, entrepreneurial hotbeds that Welch was trying to stimulate. They offer highly personalized academic experiences leveraged with learning on a global scale. They succeed through a singular focus on the student, astute management of resources and an emphasis on good people. As the great 19th century American Statesman, Daniel Webster, said in pleading for the independence from state control of his cherished Dartmouth College before the great John Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court:

"...Sir, you may destroy this little institution ..., but if you do ... you must extinguish, one after another, all those great lights of science, which, for more than a century, have thrown their radiance over the land! It is, sir, ...a small college, and yet there are those that love it. ..."