Cultivating the inner resolve necessary to lead a full life in the face of the world's vicissitudes
In our rush to find jobs and social status, we have lost sight of the essential purpose of the undergraduate education: to instill a profound understanding of the world and the principles that underlie both human experience and science while inculcating a personal resolve to pursue important goals over the course of a lifetime. The liberal arts education has as its ultimate goal the cultivation in every student of greater confidence and of personal resolve that will allow all to pursue meaningful lives in the face of the life's uncertainties. The multiple perspectives developed by the individual through broad, mindful, reading provides the full range of insights required to understand, and make the best of, trying experiences.
A liberal education is not something acquired merely by earning credits at the university, nor by conferral of a university diploma. Becoming cultured is not a one-time process, but the beginning of a lifetime engagement at the highest levels of intellectual and moral experience. Such education is a goal in itself, as well as a means to all other goals. The liberal education goes far beyond knowledge. It is a formidable power that supports the individual for a lifetime and that bolsters the spirit even after all the knowledge acquired at the university has faded into the background. The liberal education is a intangible asset to protect oneself that no one can take away. As an asset, the liberal arts education is irreducible and timeless, going beyond the external conditions of life.
Such a liberal education, and the introduction into the world of ideas that it offers, ultimately makes a person who can play a visionary role in our society. Professionals such as doctors, lawyers, CEOs and policy makers who have had a proper liberal arts education are more effective, more strategic, more visionary and more human in their work. University education must take liberal culture as its ultimate goal and the pinnacle of education.