"Forgery" Cole Woodcox Selection from Phi Beta Kappa Lecture, Truman State University, April 1997

Do we as a University need to consider whether or not we are forgers? . . . . In our consumer-based society, business strategies are used over and over in selling universities. Higher education is seen as a company; we market degrees, students pay for courses, and, at least, at an institution like Truman, the commodity of value they receive is something called a "Liberal Arts Education."

Since our founding in 1867, Truman has undergone several changes. To connect with our own past joins us with missions and names we no longer have. Training teachers is not our focus. Nor are we a regional state college. With our change in mission we have had to connect with another past, that of the liberal arts tradition. And when, as we have seen from the earlier examples, it becomes important to control the past in order to interpret the present and when an audience has not been encouraged to discriminate between real and imitation, forgery can exist.

Of Truman's general budget for the 1997 fiscal year, 57% or roughly $31,000,000 came from the State Legislature. We charge $6,800 for in-state tuition and room and board, $9,200 for out of state.

Since 1993 we have appeared in Money Magazine's "Best Buys." We started out at 16; moved to 8th in 1994; to 5th in 1995; and to 3rd in 1996; and to 4th in 1997. We are able to provide a quality education at an affordable price.

Money's rankings point out the commodification of higher education, that this is an investment, that this is an opportunity that is extended to only those who can afford it, that the liberal arts tradition has a social cachet that makes it elitist, i.e., valuable, esteemed.

However, there is a reverse side to this. Money may rank us as a good buy, but are we known as a good liberal arts college? Money doesn't distinguish. College is college. Unfortunately, for many of our students college is college as well. We continue to work on our retention rate, which is still below average for a liberal arts college, although well above a public university's retention rate we are quick to point out, but even after nine years, when I ask students why they have come to Truman, the rare answer is first and foremost I came to Truman because it is a liberal arts college. Size is mentioned; family are mentioned; cost is almost always mentioned. Students come here because we are cheap. Academic and financial reputations intersect at a point that students are comfortable with. And it doesn't take much of a cost-benefit analysis to figure out that when the benefits of living in Kirksville and being asked to work within the pedagogical orientation of a liberal arts education cease to outweigh the mental, fiscal, emotional costs, then students will pull up the stakes and transfer.

But what about who does stay? They came because it was cheap and had a good academic reputation, "affordable quality," remember. They pay their $6,800 per annum to a liberal arts university. Do they get a liberal arts education? Money, remember, does not categorize: college is college. Likewise the State Legislature passed a bill making us a liberal arts college; they gave us $32,000,000 to Truman to be a liberal arts college.

Have these people paid for the original or have they paid for a liberal arts forgery?

That we might want to consider whether Truman offers a genuine liberal arts education or a faked one is certainly a question that should be raised given this consumer-climate. Caveat Emptor is not enough.

Some may assert that this is a moot point. Forgery's ability to make people look foolish almost guarantees silence. However, some anecdotal evidence may demonstrate that discussion of this issue for Truman is still relevant.

The 1996 Princeton Review of the Best 310 Colleges in America includes Truman. Their review of the University includes a statement from the Admissions Office to the effect that "The 5,900 undergraduate students that attend Truman State . . . have already discovered . . . an institution that is committed to providing the undergraduate student with an exemplary liberal arts and sciences education." Yet, while their student surveys show that students appreciate Truman's affordability, many students are less than satisfied with their education. For instance, two of the comments printed from those surveys are "the theme in evaluation for grading purposes [at Truman] is still 'memorize and regurgitate,'" and another survey stated, "if you want job training come here--if you want an education, DON'T!" That it is a conversation that we should have can be demonstrated by a collection of four anecdotes.

The first comes from an Undergraduate Council meeting I attended 2 years ago. A Council member wanted us to understand his discipline's concerns about the proposed Core. To whit, he relayed how, in response to recommendations made by the Liberal Arts Task Force, a faculty member in his discipline said he would not "sit by and let my discipline be Liberal Artsified." No one on Council asked why this professor had applied and accepted a teaching position at a liberal arts institution. Likewise, no one asked how the culture on our campus permitted him to believe that such a statement was acceptable or that his discipline wasn't already Liberal Artsified.

And in another university meeting, another faculty member argued that one of the reasons why certain changes in the course titles and course prefixes should be approved was because this would make those courses "look more liberal artsish."

Thirdly, at a recent open meeting for one of the modes of inquiry, a faculty member from one discipline told a professor from another discipline that he couldn't be sure that she would teach students their mutual mode of inquiry "correctly" because he hadn't sat on her search committee. To this person, modes of inquiry meant reinforcing divisional lines. Crossing of divisional lines meant intellectual incompetence for him. It is a view shared by many. Like many professors, I've had parents, students, and colleagues ask with varying degrees of friendliness if I was qualified to teach certain subjects in English. No one has ever asked the more pressing question, whether I was trained at all to teach. Likewise, no one has ever asked what my interdisciplinary qualifications were for teaching at a liberal arts college. Instead, discipline content is everything. Ability to teach is a distant second. Interdisciplinarity and breadth of learning are luxuries rather than necessities. We may say we promote lifelong learning, but such comments raise doubts about whether our students can reasonably expect to find bridges to other disciplines in every course they take at Truman. And while I am not advocating interdiscursivity at the expense of interdisciplinarity, that is training in other disciplines' methodologies, such comments also suggest to faculty, students, and staff that we cultivate a deep-seated suspicion of the very mental flexibility and interdisciplinary facility we say we expect of our students.

And finally, we are a self-proclaimed liberal arts institution. U.S. News and World Report ranks universities every year, dividing them into two categories: Comprehensive Universities and Liberal Arts Universities. In 1987, Truman ranked 13th in the Regional Comprehensive category; in 1990 the same; in 1991 11th in the Midwest Comprehensive category. The 1985 State Legislature designated Truman a liberal arts college, but at no time in the past 12 years has U.S. News and World Report listed us as such. To them we are a Comprehensive university. But the picture gets gloomier. For the past four years we have not appeared in U.S. News and World Report's annual rankings. Only the top 15 school names are published in regional categories. They are ranked. For the past 4 years, we have been "Not Ranked"; that is, we have dropped from the top 15 into the top 33 schools in the Midwest region. And we are still categorized as a comprehensive university, not a liberal arts college.

We ask our students to pay $6,800. In return we tell them they are getting a liberal arts education. Some have no idea what that means and concomitantly believe anything we tell them. Some students do know what that means. Their parents went to liberal arts colleges or know what they are, or these prospective students have visited liberal arts colleges; they have friends at liberal arts colleges and compare curriculum and activities.

U.S. News and World Report doesn't list us as liberal arts. Money doesn't care. Phi Beta Kappa has turned down our application for a chapter three times--a not unusual occurrence, I hasten to add. And at least one student in 5,900 thinks we are a great job training center, and one professor out of 350 believes that the intellectual rigor of his discipline would be seriously compromised if that discipline were exposed to the liberal arts. These may be small examples, but I do not believe them to be insignificant. I believe anyone in this room could offer corroborative examples. In short, somehow we are communicating to ourselves, to our students, to national media that it is acceptable to see us as NOT a liberal arts institution, that we will tolerate being NOT a liberal arts institution, that it is all right NOT to develop in ourselves or our students the ability to discriminate, however tentatively, between the genuine and the counterfeit.

If it had been suddenly revealed this morning that we were a research multi-versity or a vocation training institution and not a liberal arts college, Jack Magruder would still be President tomorrow morning, I would still have a class in British Romanticism this afternoon at 4:30, and several thousand students would still leave campus after final exams. An object will continue to exist, however when its origin has been misrepresented, an accurate assessment of its achievement cannot be determined.

Within the next year, Undergraduate Council will begin to approve courses for inclusion in our new Liberal Studies Program. While many of the courses proposed by the faculty will have to meet the criteria set out in the Outcomes statements, there is an additional criterion that the faculty voted on in the referendum last year: that proposed courses meet the criteria for the Liberal Arts as set out by Phi Beta Kappa.

Phi Beta Kappa has promoted "the development of liberally educated men and women" since its founding in 1776. It awards membership to undergraduates who have attended institutions that "emphasize curricula definitely liberal in character and that afford adequate instruction in the arts and sciences." The criteria it recommends and this faculty have voted to accept are:

1. that "in acquiring a liberal education, the undergraduate will study primarily subjects which illuminate the human condition, subjects which explore aspects of taste and feeling, of the reasoning process, of the physical and moral worlds, of individual and group responsibility, of the meaning of life as a whole," and

2. that "a liberal education is not primarily vocational," and

3. that "a liberal education seeks to quicken the mind and spirit by encouraging the full development of human capacities," and

4. that "it is true that often a liberal education may have a definitive market value and may in that sense be considered vocational. It is true also that vocational programs sometimes contain liberal content. Nevertheless, the main lines of cleavage can, in practice, be seen. It is not difficult to distinguish between broad cultivation and technical competence. [I might add parenthetically that those lines were beautifully articulated in this same forum three years ago by Bob Graber. Phi Beta Kappa uses his book that that lecture was based on in presenting the Liberal Arts to high school teachers.] and

5. that "courses in literature, languages, philosophy, religion, the fine arts, history, the social sciences, mathematics, and the natural sciences will form the substance of a liberal arts education."

For the faculty to propose courses that do not meet those liberal arts criteria would be illegal. We are a liberal arts institution by State mandate. For faculty to propose courses or UGC to approve courses that do not fit those criteria would be unethical. We accept money in return for a commodity called a liberal arts education, a liberal arts experience, a liberal arts culture. The Liberal Studies Program offers us the opportunity to continue to develop the curricular aspect of this university's liberal arts mission. I hope that students, their parents, and alumni demand that we give the liberal arts experience they pay for because people, throughout the world and throughout time, have gazed on the counterfeit and been told that it is a privilege for too long.

-- Anonymous, November 10, 1998

Answers

Although I understand the pressures to refer to education -- even a liberal arts one -- as a commodity, I still resist that linguistic equation.

Still, in typically erudite and understated fashion, Dr. Woodcox offers several "small ... but not insignificant examples" of holes in the fabric of our academic mission that might suggest a liberal arts culture that is something less than authentic.

I have a few modest examples to add to Dr. Woodcox' illuminating list.

a) In an admittedly cursory review of five years of Truman yearbooks (1993-1997), I spot virtually no reference to the liberal arts, and scant acknowledgement of the university's liberal arts mission. (One of the few places where it is even mentioned is the article on Cole's Educator-of-the-Year award (1993, p. 55). This in spite of some titles suggestive of an organizational identity crisis (Who We Are, 1995; Create an Image, 1997). This is hardly the university's fault, but it might say something about student perception.

b) Since coming here in 1993 I have been somewhat mystified by the meaning of COPLAC (Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges). It is mentioned, on occasion (Truman is a member), but never explained. What is its purpose? What are our obligations to the organization, and its to us. Does it actually *do* anything? Not surprisingly, our web site referencing the organization offers little help, is out of date, and has 3 or 4 dead links. If you hunt around cyberspace long enough, you can find some additional information on the Mary Washington College site (also a member), buried under an Admissions page. It appears to be the official COPLAC homepage, although it does not make that claim. At a miminum this lack of visibility raises some questions (at least in my mind) about the legitimacy of the COPLAC organization in the first place. Second, (just perhaps) by extension, some questions might be raised about the authenticity of the "public liberal arts college" designation as a concept. Nevertheless, Mary Washington should be complimented for trying; the page is a step in the right direction. Too bad Truman does not have a link to it. (It is http://www.mwc.edu/~admit/coplac/coplac.htm)

c) Relatedly, but more broadly, Truman does not convincingly either project or elaborate its liberal arts mission via its web page. Under "About the University," it is mentioned in the President's Message, but seemingly confused with general education requirements. It is barely mentioned in the "History of the University," and ignored on the "COPLAC" page. It is addressed under the "University Mission" page, as follows:

[to promote]: * intellectual integrity, tolerance of difference and diversity, informed ethical values, and courageous aspiration toward the best for oneself, one's family, one's society, and the world; * a sense of the joys and uses of creative and critical thought, including skills of intellectual problem-solving through effective reading and research, clear writing, and articulate speech; * the willingness and ability to exercise personal and intellectual leadership in his or her chosen field of endeavor

It would be helpful if the university could offer some insight as to exactly how these goals are fostered by the educational culture at Truman. Attempts at specificity are made in the "Affirming the Promise" document, but those goals are not clearly linked to the mission statement above, are often diffuse, and (if my speech communication colleagues will forgive me), in some cases seemingly "merely rhetorical."

For example, on page 49 of that document (under "Priorities for Institutional Action") it is stated that "... Truman can best serve the long-term interests of Missouri's citizens who support and depend on this intitution: * by the deepening of the university's liberal arts culture to levels comparable to the best liberal arts institutions in the nation -- whether public or private -- as a means of more completely fulfilling the institution's mission and obligations to the citizens of Missori..."

A statement which is as nebulous as it is circular. And perhaps fraudulent?

-- Anonymous, December 18, 1998

I, too, think that, when we define public liberal arts at Truman, it is important for us to place ourselves within rather than outside the parameters of what liberal arts universities traditionally do. Let me give an example of a traditional position and apply it to our situation.

'The American college through much of the nineteenth century was organized on the assumption that higher learning constituted a single unified culture. The purpose of college education was to produce a man of learning who would have an uplifting and unifying influence on society. Literature, the arts, and science were regarded as branches of a single culture of learning. It was the task of moral philosophy, a required course in the senior year, usually taught by the college president, not only to integrate the various fields of learning, including science and religion, but even more importantly to draw the implications for the living of a good life individually and socially (Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life [New York: Harper & Row, 1986], p. 298-99).'

Notice that in the historical version of liberal arts, the liberal arts and sciences are not viewed as separate enterprises. They are viewed as residing together within one unified culture. The sciences, in fact, are encompassed by the liberal arts; the sciences do not stand independently. At Truman, however, we separate the liberal arts and the sciences as if the two parts had nothing to do with each other. This division justifies the way in which the administration makes decisions regarding teaching load, scholarship, salaries, and so on. For instance, support for liberal arts scholarship comes only after full and adequate support has been given to the sciences. Thus, there is tension rather than unity between the liberal arts and the sciences at Truman. The sciences view the liberal arts as the tail that wags the dog, and the liberal arts view the sciences as the dog that bites its tail. The way to repair this division is recall the tradition -- Higher learning constitutes a single, unified culture. Both administrators and faculty need to articulate this tradition clearly and critically to the University community.

In the historical version of liberal arts, notice also that moral education plays a central rather than marginal role in the curriculum and the university culture. Moral education centers the historical mission of the liberal arts university. In the past, the role of the university president was to model this moral knowledge that was an essential component of the liberal arts culture. Today, presidents do not have time to teach senior seminars on living a good life; they, however, commission others, faculty as well as administrators, to carry out this task at their bequest. Charles McClain, a former president, hired faculty as well as additional staff with doctoral degrees in philosophy in that these faculty could teach on his behalf, not critical thinking skills, but moral reasoning. Unlike the president of a research university, the president of a liberal arts university remains a teacher. Symbolically, at a liberal arts university, the entire student body as well as the faculty sit in the president's classroom. This is a heavy but exciting responsibility. I hope this application of one traditional version of a liberal arts education to our situation at Truman is helpful.

-- Anonymous, March 16, 1999