A BVU and liberal arts education is ‘worth it’ as we transition to a learning economy 

In past essays I discussed costs and value of higher education. In this essay I focus on the benefits of attending a school with liberal arts grounding like BVU. I find in speaking with community members and with friends, as well as from reading and watching the news, there is a lot of confusion around what “liberal arts” means.  

I will start with what liberal arts does NOT mean.  The liberal arts are not, as some in the media insinuate, indoctrination of a capital L “Liberal” (Leftist) philosophy. A liberal arts grounded education is focused on teaching students HOW to think, not WHAT to think. Whether a specific college focuses on the former or the latter is not always easily discerned, but teaching people HOW to think was always at the core of what I did during my 15 years as a BVU biology professor and remains our institutional priority today.  

BVU’s mission statement is, “We prepare students for lifelong success through transformational academic experiences.” We believe the foundation for lifelong success is a liberal arts-grounded general education program that focuses on academic skill development. Good liberal arts general education programs are grounded in the Western philosophy that the best education happens when students learn to see the world through a variety of lenses, from the natural sciences to the humanities, and from the social sciences to the arts.   

Also critical for lifelong success, every general education class and every BVU major simultaneously focuses on the development of what we call the “signature skills,” which are problem solving, effective communication, and integration of learning across disciplines. Our students show tremendous growth in these academic skills during their time with us, and they set our graduates apart from others because they have developed academic skills applicable for all job settings and all disciplines. 

In addition to general education, majors are important. They often provide the springboard into specific careers and professions. The purpose of a major is to allow students to dive deeply into a discipline that will provide a foundation for what they want to do professionally. However, you can’t learn everything you need to know to be a successful accountant, computer scientist, or biologist during four years of college. Laws change. Technology evolves. Research happens. Majors give you a start, but they are not as critical to lifelong success as general education. 

As a college president, I have yet to find my Ph.D. in biochemistry, and my knowledge of molecular virology to be of much relevance to my job. What is of relevance is the liberal arts-grounded education I received at Saint John’s University and the College of Saint Benedict, where I learned how to learn, not only within my major field of study, but in disciplines like business, accounting, politics, psychology, history and other topics I navigate every day because they are now important to my job.   

I believe former Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse, now President of the University of Florida, said it best in a recent essay in the Wall Street Journal when he wrote “I think the best people to navigate a complex world are people who have a broad worldview and are well and widely read.” Sasse wrote this while proposing a curriculum that requires science and technology majors to take courses in the humanities and humanities students to take courses in science and technology.  

Sasse, also a former college president at Midland University in Nebraska, is right to challenge Florida college students to learn about more than their major field of study. He is positioning the University of Florida, which has already incorporated artificial intelligence education into every academic major, to generate graduates who are ready for the next economic transition. 

So, what does the next economic transition look like? According to my colleague Sally Amoruso at Education Advisory Board, the knowledge economy is rapidly transitioning to a learning economy, where the people most poised for success will be those who come to the workplace with demonstrable learning skills and a commitment to lifelong learning. She said curtly, “Nobody is going to lose their job to artificial intelligence (AI), but they are going to lose their job to a person who embraces AI and integrates it effectively it into their workflow.” People who can learn and evolve the fastest are going to replace people with highly technical expertise as the most desired employees because technical expertise can now be provided, in some cases, by computers. 

Is Amoruso right? Are we moving away from a knowledge economy to a learning economy? I think we are, and I am excited about the next 10 years at BVU because its liberal arts grounded curriculum that develops problem solving, effective communication, and integrative learning skills is poised to create a generation of graduates who know how to learn and will thrive in the new learning economy. What does that next 10 years at BVU look like? That is the topic for my next essay. 

Dr. Brian Lenzmeier, Ph.D., is president of Buena Vista University in Storm Lake.  This is the third part in a series of four. Read the second part here.