A liberal arts education during a time of turmoil

The liberal arts are more than a preparation for a career; they are a preparation for a nuanced, thoughtful life. The subjects supporting the frame of our Common Curriculum seek a deeper understanding of the world around us, cultivating an appreciation for the uniqueness and universalities of the human experience. Anything we experience can be related to some previous episodes in our human anthologies of literature, art and history. Our understanding of science is built upon the shoulders of those who died centuries before we were born. So, what does it mean to be a student of the liberal arts during tumultuous times?

Part of the liberal arts experience, especially at CSB/ SJU, is engagement with the world around us through art and travel. Right now, both are on hold. Study abroad programs are not running this semester and live theater is just now returning to campus in limited capacity. For now, we must focus on our local community in place of the global community we’re accustomed to typically engaging with.

Of course, there are ways to virtually engage with art and culture. However, few simulations can do justice to the beauty of live art. That said, making do is the only option we have right now. Which is worse, substitution or absence? Reckoning with whether a cropped version of an experience is worse than nothing at all is something that transcends all aspects of daily life. That answer is clearly different for everyone.

Another key component of CSB/ SJU campus life, and a selling point for our institutions compared to rival schools, is our small and intimate in-person classroom experience. Obviously, Zoom lectures and the Hyflex pedagogy have become an inevitable reality on campus, removing something many of us once took for granted. Moreover, anyone who has participated in a Zoom lecture can attest that the experience is markedly different from the one we had before last March.

The block schedule met mixed reviews for the first block; taking one class at a time for three hours a day is vastly removed from the shorter and more varied class experiences to which students are accustomed. Instead of studying a variety of classes simultaneously and noticing commonalities between fields, students instead consume an entire semester of information as quickly as possible.

With so many parts of the CSB/ SJU liberal arts education altered indefinitely, the question of how we can engage with these sacred principles meaningfully and our community is pressing. We can look backward or forward, or we can hold the past and future in tension to synthesize our current moment’s meaning and significance.

Looking to the past, we can know that however unique this moment feels, we are not alone. We faced terrifying pandemics during the Spanish Flu and Black Death. We’ve encountered uncertain elections in 1800, 1860 and 2000. We fought a nationwide struggle for civil rights in the 1960s. Our present situation is simultaneously profoundly unique and reflective of a thousand previous moments.

As liberal arts students, the combined traumas of turmoil and uncertainty demand reflection and a proper record. It’s our duty to provide an answer for when our descendants inevitably ask what this time in the human experience was like. This moment’s significance crystallizes under the gaze of what we lost from before it and what we hope to gain after it.

Preparation for life includes experiencing life. Students of the liberal arts never cease their studies; though we may not be able to enjoy our campus’s beautiful classroom’s, we need not be bound by their walls. Generate and experience art and literature, study the history of past reflections of this moment and participate in nudging along the steady trudge of history. Trust that the science generations have worked to learn and discover knowledge that will benefit generations long after we’re gone.

What does it mean to be a student of the liberal arts during trying and confusing times? It means creating and applying the meaning of life is up to us, and that’s a role far more important than preparation for any career.