Liberal Education

At colleges like St. Olaf, we get to design the minds—including yours—that will design the New World. David Orr suggests that the 21st century ecological transition will happen only if people like us design a better world—“one that can be sustained ecologically and one that can sustain us spiritually.” This transition will not be easy. It means that we need to design houses, farms, families, communities, cars, institutions, corporations and economies that “1) don’t emit carbon dioxide or other heat-trapping gases; 2) do not reduce biological diversity; 3) use energy, materials and water with high efficiency; and 4) recycle wastes.” At the same time, we need to design communities, corporations, economies and colleges that are good for human beings—materially and morally. This project is nothing less, Orr says, “than the effort to harmonize the human enterprise with how the world works as a physical system and how it ought to work as a moral system.” That effort will require a lot of mindfulness, and a lot of rigorous thinking. As David suggests, “Ecological design requires the ability to comprehend patterns that connect, which means getting beyond the boxes we call disciplines to see things in their ecological context. It requires, in other words, a liberal education.”

At St. Olaf, we understand the liberal arts in just this way. In St. Olaf 2000: Identity and Mission for the 21st Century, the college reminds us that “we live in a global village, where people and products flow continually across national borders, where our morning cup of coffee connects us economically, ecologically, politically, and morally to people we have never seen. We need a sense of community that respectfully includes women and men of different races, classes, and nationalities, and a sense of community committed to global justice. We also need a sense of community that considers the whole creation. We live on a living planet that is affected by every move we make. We inhale oxygen that comes in part from the rainforests, and we exhale gases—from our bodies and our machines—that affect the biosphere. To be responsible for ourselves, we need to know how the world works, and how we can work responsibly in the world.” When it works well, a liberal arts education uses the perspectives of different disciplines, connecting the past and the present to the future, and helping students serve their communities, both human and natural.