The Liberal Arts in Higher Education: Challenging Assumptions, Exploring Possibilities

The Liberal Arts in Higher Education launches an institutional effort to establish a shared definition and to clarify the contours of the liberal arts and liberal education by extending centuries-old dialogue to the coeducational, Christian campus of Azusa Pacific University. The book contains 'working' definitions of key terms, including: liberal arts, liberal education, trivium, quadrivium, liberalism, and general education and a cursory review of five paradigms of liberal education. It also presents a description of five perennial debates regarding liberal education: the relationship between moral and intellectual virtue, the disciplinary divide between the sciences and the humanities, the connection between professional and liberal education, and the postmodern challenge to traditional understandings of liberal education. Four original articles explore the scope and nature of liberal education, while ten critical reviews discuss some of the most quoted literature on the topic. These essays provide a philosophical assessment of the past and present nature of liberal education along with suggestions for how a Christian liberal education may be reimagined.