At Top Ten Liberal Arts Colleges Liberal Arts is Dying, Concludes Special Report from the Independent Women's Forum
28 October 2003 - 5:16AM
PR Newswire (US)
At Top Ten Liberal Arts Colleges Liberal Arts is Dying, Concludes
Special Report from the Independent Women's Forum WASHINGTON, Oct.
27 /PRNewswire/ -- Parents who send their children to the top 10
liberal arts colleges in the country will be surprised to learn
that at most of these schools political correctness has killed
liberal arts. This is the conclusion of a new report by the
Independent Women's Forum (IWF) titled 'Death of the Liberal Arts?'
IWF took the top ten liberal arts colleges as ranked by the
influential U.S. News & World Report annual college guide, and
combed through their freshman offerings in three fields: English,
history, and political science. Departments that require or offer a
comprehensive introductory course for freshmen were given a passing
grade. An English department that did not at least give freshmen
the opportunity to study the traditional English and American
literary canon, a history department that neglected the evolution
of Western Civilization, or a political science department that
missed out on teaching the fundamentals of the American republic
were, for example, given a failing grade. Failing departments were
further scrutinized to see if a freshman, by cobbling together
electives, could get a good liberal arts education. The results are
far from encouraging for any parent hoping his child would go to
college and emerge as part of "the fellowship of educated men and
women." Highlighted findings from 'Death of the Liberal Arts?' --
released just prior to hearings to be held in the United States
Senate on the lack of intellectual diversity on our campuses --
include: * "A Freshman English course at Williams College entitled
'Green World' deals with the environment and explores 'man's desire
to transform chaos into civilization and art,' while 'humanizing,
plundering, and destroying the environment.'" * "Swarthmore
requires as much study of those authors who have written in the
last 173 years as those from the previous 1,730 combined." * "A
history course on 'Gender and Nation in Latin America' covers
'patriarchal discourses of state and feminized representations of
nation, the idealization of motherhood as a national and Christian
value [and] the role of military regimes in promoting masculine
ideologies." "We are very pleased that Senator Judd Gregg has
scheduled hearings on this important issue before the Senate
Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee this Wednesday, the
29th," commented IWF president Nancy M. Pfotenhauer. The IWF
report, which includes its own ranking of these top ten liberal
arts colleges, urges parents and prospective students who believe
in a foundational education in the liberal arts to study what
colleges actually offer before making a final decision. DATASOURCE:
Independent Women's Forum CONTACT: Jeff Rosenberg, +1-301-972-0646,
for the Independent Women's Forum Web site: http://www.iwf.org/ x
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