31, no. 1 (Fall 1999): 10-12
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Languages, Literatures, Cultures, Women's Studies, American Cultural Studies, First-Year Seminars, and So On: Teaching in a Small Liberal Arts College
RICHARD COLT WILLIAMSON
IN 1973, the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education identified 142 selective independent academic institutions that maintain their full commitment to undergraduate education in the liberal arts and sciences and placed them in the category of Liberal Arts I institutions (Classification). Found in just about every state, with a predominance in the Northeast and the Midwest, these colleges include Amherst, Smith, Wellesley, and Williams (Massachusetts); Agnes Scott (Georgia); Beloit (Wisconsin); Carleton (Minnesota); Colby, Bates, and Bowdoin (Maine); Dickinson, Bryn Mawr, and Haverford (Pennsylvania); Earlham (Indiana); Grinnell (Iowa); Reed (Oregon); Pomona (California); Sarah Lawrence (New York); Goucher (Maryland); Knox, Oberlin, and Denison (Ohio); Davidson (North Carolina); Colorado College; Connecticut College; Eckerd (Florida); and many others, ranging in size from 1,500 to 3,200 students and all among the most challenging colleges in the country, according to the leading college guidebooks, such as Barron's and Peterson's. If we glanced at the catalogs of these liberal arts colleges, we would undoubtedly find similar language describing their purpose: the acquisition of effective communication skills, the ability to see ideas in their full complexity, the undermining of parochialism, the openness to change, international awareness, the development of a sense of personal and societal responsibility, and a capacity for self-reeducation. The catalog of Middlebury College, for instance, describes the goals of a Middlebury education as follows: "The liberal arts education offered by the College is designed to enable students to lead rewarding lives of ongoing intellectual and spiritual growth and to prepare them to meet the challenges of responsible citizenship in a complex, changing world" (10). The liberal arts curriculum naturally combines teaching and learning in language, literature, history, art, politics, economics, geology, music, geography, and other fields in a residential environment where students and faculty members studying one field are routinely exposed to colleagues focused on the others. The distinguishing feature of a small liberal arts college can be summarized as the pursuit of intellectual and personal development rather than preparation for a specific vocation. We read on the second page of the Bates catalog: "[Faculty members] are involving students in collaborative work and challenging them to share responsibility for learning and creating variations on what constitutes a 'course.' Faculty also are seeking ways of more fully integrating into the curriculum study abroad, internships, service-learning, alumni resources, extracurricular campus life, and disciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches in teaching, learning, and scholarship."
Bates, like other small, selective independent colleges dedicated to liberal education, has continually strengthened its teaching of languages and has succeeded in using its financial resources to assure its undergraduates of small classes and a challenging curriculum. Fortunately, it has understood the key role it can play in international education, for the small liberal arts college must prepare and motivate those students interested in graduate study and careers in international studies or affairs. Such colleges must prepare those who go on to professional school. They must educate those who will become elementary and secondary school teachers. Finally, they must prepare all students to be responsible world citizens. And in these goals they are remarkably successful.
A group of these colleges, known as the International 50, awarded less than 1.8% of the total baccalaureate degrees in 1988 (just under a million). Nonetheless, the smallness of enrollment must not be allowed to detract from their importance. According to the report, In the International Interest: The Contribution and Needs of America's International Liberal Arts Colleges, graduates of these colleges:
- make up 10.4% of the student body at graduate schools of international affairs
- have received 9.1% of the PhDs awarded in all international fields and 11.4% of the PhDs in European history, 15.5% of those in Russian, and 20.4% of the ones in Japanese
- represent more than 10% of United States ambassadors and 9% of the nation's foreign-service officers
- are 3 times more likely to have majored in foreign languages or area studies than are their peers at major research universities, and 5.3 times more likely than are all college graduates nationally
- are nearly 3 times more likely to have studied abroad during their undergraduate years than are their peers nationally
- enter into the Peace Corps in a proportion 2.5 times greater than that of their peers at all colleges and universities
- last, and most pertinent, major in foreign languages more frequently at a time when undergraduates nationally have been less interested in majoring in such languages
Thus, at these international liberal arts colleges, if I can now call them that, we find a high proportion of students and faculty who have international interests and experience abroad. They, in turn, help nurture a global perspective that, in the residential environment of close association, may encourage even more interest among their peers in acquiring an international perspective. Now let us look at some of the advantages and disadvantages of faculty life in a small liberal arts college.
John Ciardi once quipped, "A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students." A defining characteristic of life in a small liberal arts college is devotion to students, who have selected the institution precisely because it can offer small classes and close contact with professors. A residential community nurtures close association and significant opportunities for collaboration among students and faculty and, often, the creation of true learning communities. Of course, the size of the institution dictates the size of the language department, and one will find departments ranging from three to twelve faculty members. These people will, of necessity, teach a wide range of courses, with language offerings predominating, and may soon find opportunities to team teach with colleagues from other disciplines. For instance, in the winter 1999 semester at Bates College a colleague in Japanese joined with a colleague in Russian to offer a course that examined perspectives on the environment in the respective literatures. Taught in English, it was cross-listed in environmental studies and can count toward the major in that field. The ability to teach well and to be flexible is, indeed, a prerequisite for success in a small liberal arts college, and it is measured carefully in all considerations of reappointment.
Obviously, the International 50 are undergraduate colleges. For those who prefer to teach only in the immediate area of their dissertations or to devote considerable time to writing and research or to benefit from the intellectual energy of graduate students, it would be a mistake to come to one of these institutions and expect to find immediate gratification. Libraries in them, for instance, are designed for the undergraduate user: they undoubtedly have the basic texts and some good secondary sources, but they can subscribe to only a few of the various journals in the field. Nonetheless, faculty members are all involved in research and are grateful for the quick and beneficial services of interlibrary loan. In addition, more and more journals are now online, facilitating these faculty members' work. Although it is quite apparent that professional achievement in the common forms of writing and publication is more important in considerations of tenure and promotion than it was fifteen years ago, effective and informed teaching remains the priority.
Most of the colleges in the Carnegie Liberal Arts I category are independent and enjoy good resources for those teaching languages, literatures, and cultures. At Bates College, for instance, funding is available to support new study-abroad programs; travel and research abroad by faculty members, not limited to those in language departments; continuing education for faculty through workshops, seminars, research trips, and international conferences, with emphasis at the moment on using new technology, such as laser discs, satellite dishes, and the Internet; native-language teaching assistants brought to campus for the year to supplement teaching and to serve as cultural ambassadors; library acquisitions; summer fellowships for student research and work; and faculty publication. This does not at all mean that these places are Eldorados: faculty must seek continually more support for their work and are always stretching resources to maintain quality.
Two final challenges for teaching in a small liberal arts college are not unique to these institutions but seem exacerbated in their ambience. First, how does one succeed in getting everything done, if that is at all possible? Do I finish correcting final exams or work on this paper for the ADFL? My daughter wants to be picked up at school at exactly the same time my thesis advisee is able to talk with me. I have scheduled individual appointments with students in my Advanced Grammar and Composition course to discuss patterns of errors. Now the dean has called: she wants to have one last look at a grant proposal before it will be sent FedEx, and the only time she is available is during those appointments. Do I have time to read the report before I attend the meeting of the Off-Campus Study Committee? In a small liberal arts college one must continually establish priorities, for the various responsibilities one accepts can seem quite demanding.
The second challenge is even more important than time management. As I have mentioned, department faculties in these institutions tend to be small in number. If colleagues do not get along, if a few bicker among themselves, if one refuses to teach a balance of language and literature courses, or if some never cease talking about others behind their backs, then life will be miserable for the most well-intentioned colleague. In short, collegiality must be paramount. Those who are considering a career in a small liberal arts college should try to ascertain as quickly as possible how the members of a department work together.
Demanding and rewarding, work in a small liberal arts college presents many challenges. As both the keepers of the curriculum and the teachers of students, faculty members play the key role in preparing undergraduates for international study. We provide instruction, serve as advisers, and, through our scholarship, provide models and guides for interested students. And, at least in the International 50, the success of our students after college indicates that we are meeting those challenges--and enjoying them.
The author is Charles A. Dana Professor of French at Bates College. This article is based on his presentation at the 1998 MLA convention in San Francisco, California.
Bates College Catalog. Lewiston, 1998.
A Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. Berkeley: Carnegie Commission on Higher Educ., 1973.
In the International Interest: The Contributions and Needs of America's International Liberal Arts Colleges. Beloit: Intl. Liberal Arts Colls., 1992.
Middlebury College Catalogue. Middlebury, 1998.
© 1999 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All Rights Reserved.
