students

In Boston we may well be at the epicenter of the debate over the value of a liberal education. The "culture wars,” “the crisis in liberal arts education or the humanities”- these phrases are commonplace. 

Because of our admissions processes, today’s students arrive at college having been encouraged to be well-rounded as the highest of values. I hope for my students that they will learn to explore, to follow their own intellectual pathways, and to discover their passions – rendering them sharp. 

The well-rounded student, after the rigors of a broadly based liberal education, emerges after graduation prepared to forge ahead as an individual and citizen in our global, complex, ever-changing, and imperiled world with a sharp focus on the implications for people and societies.

No other city transforms like Boston this time of year, and the scenes are all around us: Returning college students driving U-Hauls, moving into dorms and re-connecting after a summer back home What’s different this September is the nationwide focus on higher education, from the cost, the debt to the payoff.

While students here in Boston set up their dorms, colleges and universities elsewhere are struggling at times behind the scenes and at others, in full view. Take, for instance, empty seats.