44 Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal Vol. 19, No. 2 (Fall 2020): 44-62
Why Christian Higher Education Exists: A Case for Introducing the Liberal Arts in First Year Seminars Steven A. Petersheim
When I enrolled in college for the first time, I expected to be inducted immediately into a rich study of “the best that has been thought and said,” under the tutelage of scholars who were daily delving deep in the intellectual treasures of the past and present.1 I hoped to venture far out into the life of the mind to explore things I had thus far only glimpsed or imagined. As an Amish child and first-generation college student who had been home-schooled for high school, I did not have a close network of experienced peoples to prepare me for what was to come. I relied heavily upon what I had learned in books, where I had encountered great thinkers and writers who inspired me to relish the goodness, beauty, and truth to be found in the world around me even while alerting me to the evil, ugliness, and deception waiting to sweep me up as well. The world of higher education was a tantalizing riddle that I eagerly wished to unravel. I enrolled in college to enter more deeply into the imaginative and intellectual life of the mind to be found in the great expanse of humanity across time and space as well as in the present. Here I would seek out answers to all of my questions and observations about the great big world around me. But it was not until I began taking literature classes that I finally found some of the mind-bending, soul-feeding discussions I had been expecting from higher education. One professor in particular evoked the big questions about reality, the meaning of life, human purpose, the belief structures of society and civilization, human flourishing, truth, and God. A self-avowed atheistic Jew whose practical agnosticism showed itself in the questions he asked as well as in his observation of Passover despite his lack of belief, Dr. Schlegel renewed my desire for deeper knowledge and understanding of the human condition. His study of literature as a site of engagement with the big questions of life captured my imagination and engaged my intellect, and he eventually convinced me to add English as a second major though I had very little sense of what I might do with an English degree at the time. I only knew that the texts and conversations in literature classes whetted my appetite for greater understanding of the ultimate meaning of human life. Unfortunately, undergraduate students typically have too few opportunities or experiences that inspire them to pursue ultimate questions that arise from the kind of deep thinking and learning traditionally encouraged by the liberal arts. Yet the whole project of higher education begins to crumble when its basis in the liberal arts is seriously undermined. No longer is college a place of holistic learning for many students; it is simply a hoop to be jumped through
