Liberal Arts Web Page

This course introduces students directly to the concept of liberal learning, its history and traditions, and its methods. Where in previous PORTfolio

 coursework and off-campus experiences have focused on resources of self and community, this seminar focuses on the liberal arts within the college

 setting. We will address the question of what it means to study various disciplines (e.g. Psychology, Literature, History, etc.) within the context of the

 liberal arts. We will utilize various perspectives within the liberal arts to study a specific topic, namely humor. Finally, we will study the history of the

 General Studies Program at VWC in the context of the liberal arts.

Definition of the Liberal Arts

    Their are many different ways to define the Liberal Arts. Liberal arts can be defined as a "college or university curriculum aimed at imparting

 general knowledge and developing intellectual capacities, in contrast to a professional, vocational, or technical environment. The way dictionary.com

 defines the liberal arts is as the academic course of instruction at a college intended to provide general knowledge and comprising the arts,

 humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences as opposed to professional and technical subjects.  Another example is Dr. Hultgren who said

 during class a liberal arts education seeks to empower individuals, liberate the mind from ignorance, and cultivates social responsibility. but more

 than the definition of Liberal Arts is how it allows you to comprehend a variety of situations in a multitude of ways. The four ways that The liberal

 arts can be defined are Historical (H), Aesthetic (A), Values (V), and Empirical (E). Historical seeks to inform how things were, have changed,

 will change and stayed the same. It also serves to teach the importance of empathy. . Values seek to talk about how ethics and things of

 that nature can be expressed.  Aesthetics seeks to unify minds through varied experiences. Finally, The empirical approach seeks to take 

 a systematic method of learning how to figure out things. During the philosophy session we also learned that the liberal

 arts has been defined many times which indicates the fluidity, versatility, and importance.

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