Faculty of Arts, University of British Columbia
- The “liberal arts” today are generally understood to mean the arts and social sciences, as distinct from the physical sciences and technology.
- But “liberal arts” used to be applied to all the skills that would enable a person to act as a responsible citizen
- In that sense, when we speak of STEM subjects versus the humanities versus professional education, we can be said to be drawing a distinction where, really, there is no difference. Properly educated, anyone – whether an engineer, a lawyer, a philosopher, artist or mathematician – should be able to participate in society
- We should be talking about STEAM, not STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics
- But increasingly we have raised barriers between subject areas; we have put greater and greater value in specialization, working from the theory that our students must be masters of their chosen field, requiring them to dedicate themselves to a particular subject
- The danger of such divisions and specializations has long been recognized; perhaps most memorably by C. P. Snow, the English novelist, who, in 1959, warned of the danger of the “two cultures”. Let me quote from his lecture:
A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is the scientific equivalent of: Have you read a work of Shakespeare’s?
- Snow’s fear was that British education was falling behind the education provided in other countries because it overvalued the humanities and the arts, at the expense of science.
- Today we seem to have moved to the other extreme: our society is calling for more and more graduates of science and technology, granting the arts a smaller and smaller portion of the educational pie.
- We need to restore some balance: to promote the idea that a liberal arts education is as important to the life of society as science and technology.
- We want to emphasize that the skills acquired by graduates of liberal arts programs will prepare them for the demands of a career in the professions; and we want to affirm that true literacy requires students in any field to have at least a rudimentary understanding of the basic principles of the arts and the sciences.
- So, for example, a graduate in fine arts should have enough scientific understanding of geology and chemistry to understand the nature of the mineral pigments used in the manufacture of paint.
- Conversely, a medical science graduate should know something of the rich literature regarding sickness and health, and birth and death; and a civil engineer should be aware of the philosophical discussions around where technology ends and humanity begins.
- I think this is something we can all agree with. Where we run into difficulty is in persuading students that there is practical value in their acquiring some understanding of fields other than their chosen discipline.
- At UBC, like many institutions, we have tried to apply the principle of breadth in undergraduate education by imposing program requirements; so a Science major, for example, must take at least 12 credits in Arts, as well as up to six credits in English.
- This would seem to allow for some reasonable exposure to disciplines outside the area of one’s specialty
- Unfortunately, sometimes such electives are essentially add-ons, courses that may have little or no relevance to a student’s ultimate disciplinary objectives.
- To deal with this, some of our colleagues at UBC have approached the issue from another angle: to offer students courses and programs that cross disciplines, bringing the arts and the STEM subjects into a more coherent relationship.
- In Applied Science, for example, Engineering students have some interesting options: they must take a minimum of 20 credits in what are called “complementary studies,” which cover seven different areas:
- Engineering economics;
- the impact of technology on society;
- electives in Humanities and the social sciences;
- communications;
- health and safety;
- professional ethics, equity and law;
- and finally, sustainable development and environmental stewardship.
- The goal here is to enable students to see their STEM subjects from different perspectives, and to encourage a more questioning and critical stance than was apparent among engineers in the past.
- Alternatively, you here in the Faculty of Arts offer a dual degree program with Applied Science.
- In this demanding five-year program, students must meet all the program requirements for a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Applied Science degree.
- Indeed, the dual degree is beginning to attract students in a variety of fields: over the past year we graduated a number of students with dual degrees in Science and Music – a marriage that I as a scientist and musician can heartily endorse.
- another group twinned Science with majors in International Relations, English, and Economics.
- Such developments are useful alternatives to traditional disciplinary concentrations, and are helping to breathe new life into the BA.
- But what we are beginning to realize is that the liberal arts must open themselves up to new ideas, not only about the rapidly changing kinds of pedagogy that are transforming education at every level, but also about the nature of the liberal arts themselves and their role in modern society.
- At UBC, without shedding any of the values associated with the humanities and the social sciences, we are responding to pressures for change by introducing new courses to prepare students for work in fields that barely existed a decade ago.
- A student in Arts can now take a program in Cognitive Systems, in which the participating units are Philosophy, Psychology, Linguistics, and Computer Science.
- Through the interwoven study of these fields, the student gains a comprehensive understanding of human cognition, and learns to apply this knowledge to create intelligent artificial systems.
- Our Bachelor of Media Studies program involves courses from art history, film studies, English literature, information studies, and computer science.
- In partnership with three other institutions in Vancouver, we also offer a Master of Digital Media program which assists students find internships with companies like Google, EA, and Microsoft, where their learning is translated into real-life projects.
- Your own Faculty of Arts also houses a master’s program in Science and Technology Studies, a transdisciplinary field that explores the human dimensions of science and technology.
- Topics include how to understand the development of scientific practices and technological objects in social contexts, the relations between science and public policy, and cultural representations of science and technology.
- These are just a few examples of how the Arts and STEM subjects are now beginning to intersect in ways we could never have predicted a few years ago. Such interrelatedness is essential if we are to give our students the kind of preparation that will prepare them for a profession beyond the BA or the BSc in an increasingly technology-oriented workplace.
- Indeed, we should be calling it STEAM, not STEM, for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics.
- Through a combination of carefully crafted curricular learning objectives in the classroom and experiential learning in internships or co-ops, the liberal arts student at UBC is encouraged to cultivate a unique professional identity, an identity that reflects their personal interests while at the same time giving them the tools they need to succeed in a world that is increasingly shaped by science and technology.
- And on the other side of the coin, engineering and science graduates are beginning to discover the social and ethical implications of their disciplines through new breadth requirements and arts electives.
- What we’re all aiming for is to create an environment in which our students are exposed to a variety of ideas, and acquire the knowledge and skills that will enable them to achieve their personal goals and become responsible members of society, regardless of their choice of profession.
- We need not be put off by labels like “professionalization”; rather, we should recognize that science, technology, and the liberal arts are the necessary means by which our students find their pathway into a career and a rich, fulfilled life, and that they are interdependent.
- Science and technology give us the “What” and the “How” of our material existence; the liberal arts answer the essential question, “Why?” And without the answer to that question, society could not move forward in any meaningful way, regardless of any advances in science and technology.
- Thank you.