liberal education in postmodern times

What has liberal education got to offer? I didn’t have a clue when I first entered university as a music major more than 30 years ago. I doubt I was much different then than many of the first year students I have in my classes today. I, like many of them, struggled with the notion of liberal education and even with the whole university experience. I switched majors a couple of times and left university for a while to pursue a different kind of learning, traveling around Ontario in a white Chevy van playing country music with some good friends. But eventually I came back, finished by undergraduate in one discipline, Anthropology, and then went on to Harvard Divinity School for a Master of Theological Studies which I managed to obtain without taking a lick of theology. A PhD at University of Toronto in Religious Studies followed, together with work on archaeological field projects in Israel and Jordan, family, and years of contracted sessional teaching in a wide range of disciplines, from Anthropology and Archaeology to Philosophy, History, and Geography. I guess that made me a liberated thinker (I always liked the liminality of cross-disciplinary interfaces) but not much of a disciplinary specialist.

So now I’m Coordinator of Liberal Education at the University of Lethbridge and I have been thinking quite a lot about liberal education and what it has to offer in these postmodern times.

This blog will recount some of my explorations and musings. Maybe others will find it stimulating or interesting.