George Leef sniffs that North Carolina State University undergraduates can satisfy their “general education” requirements with such electives as “Plants in Folklore, Myth, and Religion” and “Concert Dance History.”
I am unscandalized by this.
Concert dance is a category of performance that includes, among others, ballet; it was long taken for granted that the study of myth and religion is fundamental to higher education. I cannot imagine what is objectionable about offering such courses. What’s most objectionable about the study of art, music, and religion is that these are elective for most university students rather than mandatory.
It is possible to have bad courses or good courses in those fields, as it is possible to have bad courses or good courses in any field. I took some rotten history classes, but that is not an indictment of the study of history per se. If those concert-dance students are learning about George Balanchine or Vaslav Nijinsky, and if those students of plant folklore are reading James George Frazer or Jessie Weston, then — unless our commitment to philistinism is absolute — we should prefer such offerings to courses “that develop students’ practical skills” such as “public speaking and personal finance,” subjects better suited to middle-school study than to university study.
Leef cites an article by a recent graduate of NC State, who writes: “If NC State wants to show its commitment to a liberal arts education, taking life skills seriously is a good place to start.” No, it isn’t: The liberal arts and “life skills” are entirely different things. “Some critics may say students should learn those skills before coming to college, but many students didn’t. Colleges can correct a failing in their education.” But universities are not remedial-education institutions, and it is not their purpose to correct such deficiencies.
NC State spends about $50,000 per student per year in the simplest terms (total spending/students). I am confident that we can teach 20-year-olds to tie their own shoes for less money than that.
But that isn’t what NC State is there to do.
