March
22, 2002
Conference
on Wisdom to Consider Role of Liberal Arts
|
Elizabeth
Kiss, founding director of the Kenan Institute for Ethics
at Duke University, will deliver the keynote address at
the upcoming "wisdom" conference.
|
How well are the
nation's liberal arts colleges preparing students to become agents
for positive change in a complex and troubled world? What should
liberal arts colleges be doing to cultivate the social conscience,
clear vision, and perspective essential for making wise choices?
Mount Holyoke will challenge the leaders of more than two dozen
schools to consider these and other questions during In Search
of Wisdom: Liberal Education for a Changing World, a conference
scheduled for April 4 through 6.
Three conference events
will be open to the public. Members of the MHC community are encouraged
to attend the keynote address by Elizabeth Kiss, founding director
of the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University, Thursday,
April 4, at 7:30 pm in Gamble Auditorium and a dialogue titled
"Listening to Communities: A Conversation among Community
Leaders" Friday, April 5, at 7 pm, also in Gamble Auditorium.
The participants are the Rev. Dr. Otis Moss Jr., pastor of Olivet
Institutional Baptist Church, and Judith Kurland of Women Waging
Peace, a multiyear collaborative venture of Harvard University's
John F. Kennedy School of Government. On Friday, April 5, 2002
at 4:15 p.m. in Abbey Memorial Chapel there will be a multi-faith
celebration of wisdom led by members of the Baha'i, Buddhist,
Catholic, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Protestant, Unitarian Universalist,
and Wiccan/Pagan communities at Mount Holyoke College.
"Education for
wise and ethical leadership captures broad and complex images
of why liberal arts colleges exist, our mission, vision, and values,"
said Beverly Daniel Tatum, acting president of the College. "It
presupposes that prestigious liberal arts colleges educate many
of the nation's best and brightest. In this role, we must always
strive to graduate individuals who possess integrity, embrace
pluralism, are committed to social justice, and answer the call
to responsible and active citizenship. Are we doing this? How
well?"
|
Photo: Annemarie Poyo
Conference
participant Johnetta Cole
|
Addressing these questions
will be top educators from twenty-six liberal arts colleges. A
partial list of institutions expected to participate includes
Amherst, Antioch, Barnard, Brown, Bryn Mawr, Macalester, Morehouse,
Smith, Sarah Lawrence, Wellesley, and Williams colleges, as well
as Colgate University, Saint Lawrence University, the University
of Michigan, the University of Puget Sound, the University of
the South, and Wesleyan University. Each invited school has been
asked to send a team of four people, including the president,
senior administrators, and faculty leaders.
Underlying the conference
is a concern about the decline in the norms, networks, and sense
of community that allow people to work together for the common
good. This phenomenon is reflected in many of our society's ills,
such as school violence, religious intolerance, and crimes against
women and children.
|
Photo: Ben Russell
Alison
Bernstein will be among the seventeen visionary educators
who will help frame the conference conversations.
|
The nation's campuses
are not immune to these trends. Around the country, there is rising
concern that too many students focus on narrow career goals without
an accompanying concern for the common good, and too many seek
success at any cost, as demonstrated in the rising tide of plagiarism
and other forms of academic dishonesty. The events of September
11 have only brought more urgency to the need to focus on education
for a changing world, to make certain that students have the social
conscience, clear vision, and perspective necessary for making
wise and ethical decisions.
The conference will
feature a mix of speakers, panel sessions, workshops, roundtable
discussions, study circles, periods of reflection, a town meeting,
and opportunities for multi-institutional planning. Seventeen
visionary educators with diverse backgrounds have been invited
to help frame the conversations. Among the participants are Johnetta
Cole of Emory University, the former president of Spelman College,
and Carol Geary Schneider, president of the American Association
of Colleges and Universities. Each campus has been asked to prepare
a document that either outlines the programs and activities that
contribute to students' development as responsible global citizens
or describes the campus's reaction to the terror attacks of September
11.
counter
is
3,698
|
