A response to "categorizing liberal arts"

Letter to the editor: Forgiving student loans

In Maine, median income has remained stable over the last several years, rising just 1 percent since 2000. Tuition in public colleges has climbed by 57% on average. Tuition and fees at Bowdoin College amounted to $25,890 in the 2000-2001 school year. In 2014-2015, they added up to $46,808, an increase of 81%.People are burdened with student debt now and it’s getting worse. We can fix that.In 2009, we bailed out the big Wall Street banks with TARP loans and quantitative easing (QE). The government and the Federal Reserve repeatedly purchased bank loans that were uncollectable. The TARP loans were paid back over time. The debts involved in QE were never paid back. The government erased them.The Green Party, led by Jill Stein, M.D. and Ajamu Baraka, Ph.D., wants to do the same thing with student debt. The government, probably working through the Federal Reserve, would buy the student loans from the holding entities [Sallie Mae, for instance] and then just forgive the loans.The only way this can happen any time soon is to for us vote for the Green Party candidates for President this year. Vote Green! Linda Featheringill

Letter to the editor:

Taking action to combat global warming/climate change is worthy. Without listing all of the reasons why divestment from fossil fuel companies sounds good, but will do nothing in pursuit of the cause, let me suggest that members of Bowdoin Climate Action (BCA) join the effort in Augusta to develop Maine state solar energy policy that really will move the needle.
Spending time and energy, so to speak, working with the Natural Resources Council of Maine and other environmental organizations to affect policy change in Augusta that has practical, immediate consequences would be far more effective in achieving BCA’s laudable goals than the one they insist on pursuing.
Richard MersereauBrunswick

Letter to the editor

A response to "categorizing liberal arts"

This piece represents the opinion of the author:

November 4, 2016

Last week the Orient published an editorial on the current state of liberal arts at Bowdoin, spurred by a campus-wide email from President Rose. The editors quoted me as a prop in their argument, contending we need a broader definition of the liberal arts that encompasses science and pre-professional disciplines in addition to the humanities.

The argument is so absurd that even the editors must not believe it. To call the humanities prestigious and everything else marginalized is to imply that classics and sociology are standard bearers of social worth, while biology and computer science are tragically sidelined as fruitless pursuits. Fast forward to Thanksgiving in a few weeks to reveal the preposterousness of this claim. After your distant uncle hears of your newly declared major, he’ll only say one of these two things: “Classics major, little Johnny? My, what are you going to do with that?” or “Classics major, little Johnny? How pragmatic! That industry is taking off! Pass the stuffing.” Even the editors argue that Bowdoin’s value lies in its ability to teach economics differently because students can exercise creativity and critical thinking, presumably because they have learned these skills in the humanities. The distinction of traditional liberal arts and scientific, pre-professional areas resurfaces, with the latter particularly great because the former imbue them with a humanizing aura.

Here the editors are right. Bowdoin uses the liberal arts as a way to cultivate its marketable image. In the halls of the admissions office, a guide might report to prospective students that we put a unique spin on pre-professional subjects because we focus so heavily on the humanities—we can study how the market works while also reading Dante, and so we produce better economists. (I doubt any admissions reps have said the converse.) And we tend to uphold this image. How many Bowdoin graduates wear a badge of pride for having doubled majored in economics and gender and women’s studies? How many consultants, lawyers and bankers wistfully think back to their honors projects or senior seminars in German or Africana studies? Or, from the other side, how many current studies feel the pressure to balance humanities courses with more overtly pre-professional ones?

The humanities themselves aren’t worth much on the résumé, but they do add a nice sheen to the whole package. For instance, because of our liberal arts training, we can think critically about some bond trading, or even be creative in the boardroom. The critical thinking, curiosity, and “cross-discipline dialogue” that Bowdoin encourages as idealized pursuits are really just ways of marketing ourselves for the initial job hunt and our professional careers thereafter. What seems to be an environment for pursuing academic interests is really a boot camp for entry-level jobs and professional graduate schools.

Now we are witnessing the corporatization of the university itself. What Bowdoin provides us for the humble cost of $65,590 per year is a brand, surely a potent brand given its elite status, but a brand nonetheless. The College needs to maintain that brand in order to hold currency in the corporate world. It should come as no surprise that the freedom to think critically, to learn for learning’s sake and to be imaginative occurs alongside a campaign to advance, in President Rose’s words, “purpose, culture, opportunity, and innovation” or “to enhance the ‘quantitative literacy’ of our students.” Bowdoin’s liberal arts cannot protect us from becoming professionalized zombies, crunching numbers all day, working an unfulfilling nine to five shift, or whatever—they instead help us acclimate to the prospect.

Craig A. Comen ’12

Comments are permanently closed.