As you know, there has been some STEM talk in the air the past few years. That’s really understating it, though, isn’t it? Far from a little bit of chatter, it’s been more of a clarion call. And, given a short-term, ‘what’s on our immediate economic horizon and how am I going to get a job right out of college?’ perspective, it makes perfect sense that we might see such emphasis. In fact, it also makes sense from a long-term perspective if one were interested in strategies for how America might ‘win’ the next innovation-driven era the way we ‘won’ the twentieth century. Of course the STEM disciplines must be a part of that endeavor.
But it is shortsighted and makes little sense to have this conversation at the expense of the liberal arts, as many politicians (and others) have, including President Obama, using liberal arts majors as a foil to bolster the argument that STEM disciplines deserve emphasis. To think that these two realms –STEM and the liberal arts – operate separately, and we can slough one off in order to lighten our load as we propel ourselves full-steam ahead in pursuit of the other is sheer madness. It’s not zero-sum. It’s not either-or. Moreover, my attempt to dichotomize ‘these two realms’ is a fool’s errand, for it fails to recognize the way the world works and how we should operate in it. They are not distinct and easily separated the way we often try to do in education circles.
The world does not come at us a little bit of literature, a measure of math and physics, a sprinkle of sociology and a dash of ethics, all at perfectly proportioned intervals and amounts in a nice, neat, and easy-to-execute recipe. It storms at us in rapid waves, a mash-up of drone technologies, human rights, nuclear weaponry, poverty, terrorism, new discoveries, or those myriad cases where economy and ecology collide. It is not clean and tidy, neatly packaged and formulaic. We humans rarely are.
And this human messiness provides the context for why the liberal arts have always found a place in an education that hopes to prepare citizens for the world we have and the world that’s coming. On the immediate horizon, if our world is shrinking, its pace of change quickening, and its career possibilities shifting, a broad-based liberal arts curriculum for a well-rounded education should be part of the mix now more than ever.
Though conducting laboratory research, engineering new designs, or writing software – any STEM activity, really – will be an integral part of our future, they will never be done in a vacuum. They will never be done for their own sake just because we can. They will be done in the context of the wider world. There will be questions of ethics, historical context and impact on humanity. There will be dialogue and debate and difficult decisions for our collective future. These are the bread and butter of the liberal arts and must be a significant part of any education.
Whether or not you get a great-paying engineering job right out of college is not really relevant in this context. Yes, it may be what you want. And, yes, it may be good for the world in terms of the potential contributions you may make. But it should not be a solitary consideration. Your preparation for an engineering career should not be done at the expense of your preparation to be a citizen of the world. Sure, earning potential matters, but isn’t that a reflection of what we collectively choose to value, and wouldn’t this be a good time to ask why that is?
If we can, in all good conscience, say that there is NO value in the social sciences, like psychology and anthropology, the humanities (yes, including art history, that other much maligned major), and literature (yep, we gotta toss English majors into the mix once we pull ‘em out from under the bus), then it is most definitely time to pull the plug on all of them and set our sights on STEM full-throttle. But if these domains, these college majors, have value in terms of how we learn to think and communicate about ourselves, our pursuits and our collective future, then it’s time to stop the rhetorical assault on the liberal arts.
Instead of STEM, I propose a new acronym to guide our curricular focus. Sure, it’s trite, but it’s really more traditional than anything. And it truly does get at the heart of the matter….
HEARTS
Humanities
Engineering
Arts
‘Rithmetic
Technology
Sciences (all of ‘em)
There. That ought to do it.
This article includes a new study that should help us get our collective heads (and hearts) around it…. Enjoy!